Sanctum Sanctorum
by Lomonaaeren
Summary: HPDM. A visit to the new Divination professor leaves Harry horrified when she predicts a happy future for him and Draco. He contacts Draco to warn him that the professor might spread rumors. It only takes one pebble to start the avalanche. COMPLETE.
1. In the Crystal Ball

**Title: **Sanctum Sanctorum

**Disclaimer: **J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this for fun and not profit.

**Pairing: **Harry/Draco

**Rating: **R

**Warnings: **Sex, torture, violence, child abuse, gore, angst, ignores the epilogue.

**Summary: **The new Divination professor predicts that Harry and Draco will someday live together, with a family. Horrified, Harry goes to Draco to warn him that someone might spread rumors about this. It only takes one pebble to begin the avalanche.

**Author's Notes: **While this starts out as a light-hearted fic, it gets dark fairly quickly. Also, please heed the warnings. I don't yet know how long it'll be, though I estimate between twenty and thirty chapters.

**Sanctum Sanctorum**

_Chapter One—In the Crystal Ball_

"Auror Potter, you really _must _let me do a reading for you."

Harry rolled his eyes and kept walking. The soft, slippered footsteps of Janet Plumm, Hogwarts's new Divination Professor, continued to follow him, but he ignored them. She had made the request nearly as often in the six months she'd been working here as Professor Trelawney had predicted his death in four whole years. "No, thank you," he said, as politely as he could, when it became obvious that she was going to grab his sleeve. "I have no interest in predicting the future. I'd rather live it."

"You, of all people, should want to know what faces him."

Harry paused then, and glanced sideways at her. Plumm's voice had an eerie echo to it, like Trelawney's the times that Harry had heard her give a real prophecy. But Plumm didn't look like Trelawney had when he saw her. She just had a fixed, appealing expression that didn't go well with her heavy turban or thickly-ringed fingers. Harry sighed and shook his head. "I don't want to," he said. "I've had enough to do with predictions and saving the world for anyone. I'm a normal Auror now, and I want it that way."

"You'll never be normal," Plumm said. "Those who fight for the future of our world can't be."

Harry raised his eyebrows. "So you would want to do a reading for any Auror?" He should tell Ron. Ron had escaped a cornice falling on his head a month ago after some woman in the street had shrieked at him to be careful, and ever since then, he was superstitious. Harry might have been, too, except that he'd just had too much strange shit happen to him to give a fuck. Ron might be interested in knowing what "faced" him.

"No one else did as much as you." Plumm's eyes roamed over his face, and her look was so hungry that Harry winced. He knew that he shouldn't have even slowed down and showed politeness to her. The people who took advantage of that were myriad, and didn't always have wands in their hands and threatening tones. "I have to do it," Plumm whispered, with the eerie edge to her voice again, and this time clutched Harry's arm so hard that Harry could feel her squeezing the tendon down. "Please. You deserve to know."

Harry tried to take her hand off his arm subtly, but nothing was making her let go, and he doubted McGonagall would like it if he hurled her Divination professor down the stairs, particularly since he'd just had to visit her and tell her that one of her favored students was under arrest for use of the Dark Arts. Better to compromise and go along with things, the way the Ministry was always telling him to do. Harry _had _tried to grow up and not react unreasonably to things in the past five years.

"Fine," he told Plumm, and ignored her squealing and obsequious smiles the way he'd ignored her appeals at first, following her to her rooms. "But only the crystal ball, and only once." He thought that was the quickest way to be out of there. There were too many excuses to draw out a card reading or the drinking of a cup of tea so that she could read the leaves.

"You won't regret it, I promise," Plumm told him, and darted off so that she could prepare the crystal ball. Harry coughed and choked at the incense wafting out of the rooms, and tried not to look at his reflection in all the mirrors as he ducked inside. The mirrors were probably there to make the cramped rooms look bigger or to use in handy illusions, but Harry hated the way they bounced his face back to him twenty times. He stared at it enough on the front pages of newspapers as it was.

He took a seat at the table that Plumm shoved him into and gave her a weary nod. "Well? I'm here. What did you want me to do?"

"Look into the crystal ball." Plumm was trying to use the same deep voice that had first attracted his attention, but she was smiling too much for it to sound convincing. She drew her fingers over the surface of the ball, and Harry sighed and looked down at the moving silver shadows. At least he couldn't see any reflection of his face but a faint one here. "Try to think of your future."

Harry nodded. That sounded agreeable enough. He pictured all the Firewhisky he would need to drink to feel normal after this, and folded his hands on the table in front of him.

The shadows in the ball seemed to shift and change, but Plumm was moving her hands around so much, and all her bangles were clashing so much, that Harry didn't think that meant anything. He pictured telling this story to Ron in a pub, and how Ron would probably lecture him for not believing in the power of perception, which Harry thought was the title of a book Hermione had given him. Hermione continued to feel disdain for Divination, but she was so delighted that Ron wanted to read about something, she found him all the books he wanted.

"_Auror. _Concentrate, please."

His mind must have been visibly wandering, if Plumm had noticed. Harry tried to sit up and use the attentive expression he plastered on his face in inter-departmental meetings at the Ministry. He had the Minister and Hermione and the other Aurors who thought him unfairly favored by everyone watching him there. And they were all better observers and more sensible than Plumm.

Plumm pressed her hands to the glass abruptly and hummed something beneath her breath that made Harry try to listen more closely. It sounded like the mindless tune that Dark wizards of all kinds seemed to hum when they were brewing a dangerous potion. Not that he thought Plumm was really Dark, but it never hurt to be careful.

Plumm drew her hands back, and a vision formed in the glass. Harry blinked down at it. His first thought was that Plumm had to be more talented than Trelawney, since he couldn't remember _her _ever getting that result.

His second thought was that it had to be a joke. There was no way in the history of the world that it could come true.

"This is what you wanted to show me?" He controlled his voice when he wanted to snap, again. Bad things happened when he lost his temper. He glanced at Plumm and didn't bother to control what was in his eyes. "The vision that you thought I had to know or I would lose out on some special _opportunity_?"

Plumm's eyes were bright and savage, and she kept moving her hands above the glass as though she could make the traitor vision go away. "I thought it would show you your most fervent desires!" she wailed. "Not _this!_"

Harry stared at the vision, his lip curled. It was a large garden, with walls around it and wards so thick that they distorted the vision even seen from above, as it was. The grass was disgustingly green, the walls crowded with roses and ivy. No one but a house-elf could keep them trimmed that neatly, Harry was sure. Hermione didn't live in this house and had probably never visited.

Of course she never had. Because Harry and Draco bloody Malfoy were sitting in the garden, side by side in matching chairs, their hands entwined as they watched several children play. The oldest was a girl who might have been eight, with honey-blonde hair and bright grey eyes. The others all looked to be boys, perhaps from five to three, and the girl had organized them in a line. Enchanted stones hovered in front of them, and the boys were making them move by scowling at them.

Harry reached out and brushed the surface of the ball. The vision vanished. He started to control his breathing, and closed his eyes.

It couldn't be real, and not only for the obvious reason. It had looked as though the children were manipulating those stones, but that was ridiculous. At their age, they would have either purely accidental magic—which didn't achieve such precise results—or be only beginners with wands. Harry knew, none better, that there was never as much magic when you were a wizarding child as you could use. So everything was wrong, and he had nothing to worry about.

_Except that Plumm saw the vision, too._

He didn't know if she had seen exactly the same _things _that he had, though. He opened his eyes and focused on her, hoping to find out.

Plumm was looking at the ball as though it had surprised her, her mouth slightly open and her eyes wide. Then she stared up at Harry, and said, in a different kind of breathless voice than the one she had used when trying to convince him that she had to show him his future, "That—that wasn't what I expected at _all_ from my gift urging me to make you come here. I thought you would see some awful danger to you, not happiness."

"I'm seeing a danger to my sanity," Harry said, keeping his voice dry, not letting the emotions break free and out. _That's a public relations disaster for the Ministry waiting to happen, and you know it. The same reason you couldn't throw her down the stairs earlier. _"You do know that Draco Malfoy and I were rivals in school? That there's no reason for us to end up—like that?" It was hard to say the words that were boiling in his head, any of them. _Holding hands. Being together. In love._

"The vision only gives us a glimpse, not the whole context," Plumm said, which at least made her different from Trelawney, Harry thought. Trelawney thought she could discern _everything _from that one glimpse. "We don't know why you were sitting together. Perhaps you were simply friends and the guardians of those children."

But her eyes—

They were reporter's eyes. They said she knew differently, the same way Rita Skeeter's eyes did when she watched Harry and Ginny having lunch, or Harry and Ron, or Harry and someone he was working with in another Department from the Ministry. Plumm was sure, just like that, that Harry and Malfoy were going to be in love or something, and that they would have children together, and that they would live in this little walled house or at least visit. Harry shook his head.

Certainty like that led to rumors. And he already dealt with more than enough rumors about his love-life. The public was almost immune to Skeeter's by now, since she had proven wrong so many times before and some people finally recognized that. But Plumm was a new source, and there were always people who wanted to believe in Divination. It would be awful.

"Seer Plumm," Harry said, deliberately picking a higher title than he had given her so far.

Her eyes widened in a way that the vision had never made them do, and she leaned forwards. "Yes?" she asked, voice nervous, squeaky.

"If you talk about this to _anyone_," Harry said, leaning forwards, keeping his voice gentle as gentle, "then you are going to find yourself under siege from the best lawsuits money can buy."

Plumm stared at him, mouth open, and then blinked and nodded all at once, eyes full of compassion. "Of course, of course," she murmured. "I should have seen how things stood. This is a world with a lack of understanding for someone like you, a hero who has saved it more than once. They want you to marry your best friend, or your best friend's sister. They wouldn't understand that you were bent."

Harry closed his eyes and shook his head. In truth, given that he didn't really have much interest in the words Hermione threw around, he thought he was probably bisexual, but he'd never liked a bloke enough to do anything about it. Maybe someday he would, but that time was _not _going to be dictated or tainted by the rumors that Plumm could spread around.

"Don't say anything," he told her. She just looked at him with that false compassion again, and he thought of something that might persuade her. "After all, we should leave the future to happen by itself, shouldn't we? We can't force it. It will come true, but in its own time and at its own pleasure."

Plumm clasped her hands together in what Harry decided was her version of piousness. "Of course!" she cried. "I should have seen it earlier. You don't want anyone intruding into your courtship of Malfoy, and since he was your rival everyone would have an opinion. You see the vision, but you don't know how you're going to get there yet." She closed one eye in a slow wink. "You can count on my discretion."

Harry doubted that, and the temptation to open his mouth and correct her mistaken perceptions was strong. But in the end, he held himself back and simply shrugged as he stood up. This might keep her quiet for a little while, and that would give him time to warn Malfoy. Malfoy had been devious back when Harry knew him, and he was cunning enough now to survive on the very edge of the law, in Chemic Alley, an area more or less between Diagon and Knockturn in terms of darkness. He might have a better solution than Harry to what they should do next. "Thank you," he said.

Plumm clasped his hand before he could move away. "A word of advice, young Potter?" she asked, exactly as if she were his kind aunt. It made Harry sort of glad he'd never had a real one.

Harry held his tongue and waited.

"Don't let this chance at happiness slip away," Plumm told him, and squeezed his fingers. "You never know when waiting and putting things off will catch up to you. You could die tomorrow, or Malfoy could. You could find the means to overcome your rivalry and never follow it up. You should always take what happiness you can find." She sighed and squeezed his hand one more time before she let it go. "If someone had shown that vision to _me_ and it concerned _me_, I would lose no time in pursuing it."

Harry just nodded and left without saying anything further. He would cause an incident if he did so. His temper was under much better control than it had ever been, but not the sarcastic thoughts, and sometimes the sarcastic thoughts overcame the control.

He had a task for his mind that would take up all its energy, anyway. He needed to compose a nice, non-threatening note to Malfoy asking him if they could meet. Harry might have written all the details out in a letter, but those could be intercepted by someone, and he doubted if he could make it convincing.

* * *

The letter came during the part of the brewing process when Draco most needed his attention on the potion, of course. Then again, Potter's irruptions into his life had always been like that.

The owl hooted just as Draco was counting the ground scales that he sifted into the potion. He had paused to unstick two of them, and the hoot scattered the neat numbers in his mind. He reared back and stared grimly at the bird squatting on the windowsill of his lab, wings outstretched as if enjoying the sunlight.

"You needn't do that," he told it. "I know that all of your prefer flying at night to flying by day."

The owl turned its back neatly, and sat staring out the window as though the secret of life was out there, or at least the secret of how many mice it would catch that evening. Draco sighed and walked over to relieve it of its letter. He didn't recognize the handwriting on first glance, but then, that wasn't wonderful. He had clients all over the world, and patrons who wanted special potions developed, and people who still thought they could threaten him as a reformed Death Eater. Letters from friends were rarer.

When he opened the letter, his eyes immediately skipped to the signature, and he frowned at it. It was a mess, a curving, sprawling mess that took up more room on the parchment than he would have thought it possibly could. He had to tilt his head to the side and squint before he could make out the letters in the mess.

_Harry Potter._

Draco scowled and considered burning the letter right there. Whether it was a joke or Potter actually contacting him for some reason, Draco doubted it would work out. Potter would want to chatter earnestly to him about his moral duties, or someone would come to Draco in a petal-thin disguise and want to pretend that Potter desired an illegal potion, and either way it was tiresome and a distraction from work.

He glanced at the words in the letter, and they made him read on. That was the trouble with Potter. You thought you had him under control, or that you understood him, and instead he reached out and gathered you in with tenacious, leafy branches, creeping under your control like one of those wretched spider plants that his mother inexplicably favored.

When he reached the end, he stared at the signature again. It seemed more likely than before to be Potter's actual name, because only Potter would have come up with this bald and bad a series of hints.

"You expect me to believe," Draco said aloud, because he needed an audience for his more incredulous Potter-inspired statements, and at least the owl was there, "that Harry Potter went to see the Divination professor at Hogwarts, and for that he needs to come and see me?" He looked at the bird. "Did he tell you anything about this?"

The bird hunched its shoulders in his direction. It was only an ordinary post-owl, Draco realized abruptly, distinguished by neither strength nor speed nor beauty. It was the kind of owl that Potter was said to favor, though, because the last time he had got a bird of his own, it had been injured by the people trying to steal his post from it.

That made it all the more likely that the letter was from Potter. It did _not _tell him what this was about, and it did not improve his temper. Then again, anything that could improve his temper where Potter was concerned would be a miracle, and Draco doubted that anything out there owed him one.

He sighed, put the letter down on the table in front of him, and busied himself cleaning up the ruined Delicacy Potion. He used the routine motions of his hands, the way his body turned automatically to where the best scrubbing rags and disposal vials lay in the lab, the spells that flowed through his wand with no thought from him, to soothe himself into a state where he could consider the matter.

The first thought that came to him was another prophecy, but he snorted and rejected it. A prophecy could involve Potter; it would never involve him. Draco had accepted that while he was certainly as intelligent and handsome and courteous and well-bred as any wizard in his generation, that was not enough to make him a doer of grand deeds, the way Potter was. Well, one could be splendid without being grand.

So. The Divination professor had spoken to Potter; he needed to speak to Draco. As a _consequence _of that, the letter said, so the two visits must be related somehow. Draco knew from reading the papers that Potter often used language quite carelessly, but this looked like a deliberate choice of diction, not something different from what he had meant to say or a strike at the wrong word.

Very well. The only thing he could be sure of, after ten minutes of charming away fumes and scrubbing out the cauldron and casting more charms that rendered the ruined potion inert and incapable of burning off skin, was that the news had disturbed Potter. If the prophecy had been neutral, or if the Divination professor had merely threatened to blackmail him, then there would be no need to involve Draco. And if it contained something to Draco's disadvantage alone…well, there was no reason that Potter couldn't write a letter to Draco and stay away at the same time, having a mocking laugh.

Draco could not imagine what the prophecy, or the vision, or other communication from the future, contained. He would have to see Potter, not because he was curious or wanted to but because there was absolutely no other way to determine what lay ahead of him.

_Like as not this is all a false alarm, and it'll turn out that Potter mistook the pattern of leaves on the bottom of her cup for a sign that his son will marry mine._

Draco felt his lips twitch up. A good joke, that, given that Potter didn't have the brood of red-haired children everyone had assumed he would produce and Draco had no child, either. But his father would be comforted by the news that his heir intended to settle down someday and reproduce the Malfoy future.

_Why not? _he decided at last as he began to assemble the ingredients he would need for a new batch of the Delicacy Potion. _It might amuse me. It might be legitimate news. It might be a chance for me to see Potter discomfited. _The work was the most important thing in his life, of course, but even the round of work could sometimes bore one. He might as well see Potter and, if he discovered that this was a waste of time, keep the meeting short. He was master of his own life now. He could easily overbear Potter if it turned out that this was a distraction and nothing more.

He wrote a short acceptance of the letter, suggesting a meeting the next day, and sent it out with the owl. It occurred to him as he watched it fly that Potter, an Auror, might find the timing of that meeting inconvenient. Draco was masterful in more ways than one; his hours for brewing were peculiarly his own. Potter was at the beck and call of the Ministry and random dangerous Dark wizards who might decide to kidnap maidens or kittens just as he was sitting down to breakfast.

After all these years, he could still easily picture the indignant flash of anger in Potter's eyes, the way his hands would tighten on his wand as he read the letter.

_That's fine, _Draco thought, and considered the depth of green in Potter's imagined eyes again. He was startled, and impressed, by how true he was convinced the memory was, how close to the right color he was sure he had come. _That might be better than fine, in fact._


	2. In a Malfoy Flat

Thank you for all the reviews!

_Chapter Two—In a Malfoy Flat_

Harry rolled his eyes when he read Malfoy's letter, but that was what he should have expected of the man. Luckily, he doubted the visit would have to be long. He could go in, explain the truth, endure the questions that Malfoy would undoubtedly have, and leave again instead of lingering. He could feel himself cheering up as he thought about it. He even smiled when he sent the owl back again with a reply that he could make it at the appointed time.

The owl gave him a weary look as Harry fastened the letter around its leg. Harry shrugged back, not as apologetic as he might have been if the bird was his.

"I gave you a big fat mouse right before you took the first message," he said. "That ought to be enough to keep you flying for right now."

The owl audibly sighed before it spread its wings and soared out the window. Harry leaned one elbow on the sill and watched it go, its nondescript feathers blending quickly into the dusk that was creeping up. Harry sniffed the scents of autumn for a while longer until he was sure it was gone, then shut the window.

Luckily, he had no important cases in process and could take a holiday tomorrow. But he would have gone to the meeting even if he had a murder case squatting on his head. And the Ministry would have let him. There was a reward for holding your tongue—sometimes—and nodding your head obediently to the dictates of the Ministry—sometimes. Harry got his own way far more than anyone thought, because when they looked at him in random moments, he seemed to be the perfect adult doing the Ministry's perfect bidding.

_I can wait. I can always wait._

* * *

The knock that came on the door the next morning didn't sound like Potter, Draco thought as he walked down the stairs to throw it open. On the other hand, he didn't know what he would have expected such a knock to sound like.

"Thank you for coming," Draco said as he opened the door, because it seemed like a good idea to start this meeting off on the right note. If it went sour from there, it would be no fault of Draco's.

Potter leaned against the right side of the doorway, not dressed in scarlet Auror robes as Draco had expected, but casual dark trousers and a plain grey jumper that had been made by more expert hands than most of his clothes at Hogwarts. He had his head lowered as though contemplating how he would soil his feet by stepping across Draco's threshold, but he jerked his head up and narrowed his eyes as Draco spoke.

Draco paused, and blinked. Potter still had his glasses, but they were smaller and rounder than the ones he had worn in school, and he had actually done something about the thinness to his face and body. He stood taller than Draco remembered, in addition to better-dressed, and his jawline was firmer, more well-defined. His hair was still as wild and mad as ever, but it fit with these clothes in a way that it didn't with formal robes. Perhaps that was the reason he had worn these casual clothes, Draco thought. Potter wouldn't want to make a bad impression—

_Remember who he is, and who you are. _

Right. Potter would have no _reason _to make a good impression on him. Draco nodded and moved out of the way. "Potter. Welcome. I have some tea waiting, if you'd like it."

He expected a crack about poisons, or at least potions, considering his profession. Potter appeared to have forgotten that such distrust existed. He gave Draco a small, controlled smile, the same Draco had seen on his face in the photographs where he appeared at some memorial celebration of the war, and nodded. "Tea would be welcome, thanks."

Draco raised an eyebrow and turned to lead the way back up the stairs. _So. Mature is how we're going to play it, is it? _

He might get something more valuable than mere amusement out of this visit, after all.

* * *

Malfoy was different than Harry had expected. He looked sober—not in the "lack of alcohol" sense, but in the "someone else in the world grew up and knows his place now" sense. He wore formal grey robes, but not, Harry thought, to be pretentious, the way that most people in the Ministry who affected them outside of parties did. The robes fit him well. He was taller, and he had cut his hair in the same severe, formal style as the robes, to make his face look less angular and more sophisticated. The way he moved said that he was in control of his body, and Harry admired that. One thing Auror training had given him was a keen appreciation of how much motion most people wasted. He found himself looking at men and women who were economical in the way they gestured, who took up less space than they should have, and who could fade into the background or fade out of it at a moment's notice.

He would probably never master that art completely himself. His face was too noticeable, and too known. But then, admiration for those things he wasn't was probably the best sign that he'd grown up.

Malfoy's flat was different from the image in Harry's head, too, but not as much. There was indeed expensive furniture, and a golden cauldron on a pedestal, and an enchanted window that showed a view of Malfoy Manor. But the carpet was a thick, deep blue, and the walls were a shade like ice, and Harry didn't see silver or jewels anywhere. The most prominent features of the drawing room were the three chairs in a circle and the stool in front of one of them where Malfoy probably rested his feet. Harry sat down on the chair nearest the kitchen and craned his head around to watch Malfoy disappear into it.

"You prefer Phoenix's Brew?" Malfoy's voice still had a slight drawl to it, but not nearly as irritating as it had been in school. Then again, Harry thought as he leaned back into the chair and luxuriated in the soft material beneath him, that was probably because Malfoy wasn't talking about ways to get Harry in trouble.

"I've never heard of that," Harry murmured, closing his eyes. No, it wasn't his imagination. The chair was reforming around him, sculpting itself to be more comfortable. He wondered if it was a spell or that particular brand of chair. "Bring it if it's good."

There was a pause from the kitchen, as though Malfoy had expected more of an order than that, followed by clinking. Harry smiled, still sitting there with his eyes closed. If Malfoy wanted detailed orders, he'd have to get them another day. Harry was already far more relaxed than he had expected to be, convinced this visit wouldn't be so odd after all.

A shadow crossed his face, and Harry opened his eyes and reached out to accept the cup and saucer Malfoy was handing him. Malfoy's stare was frank and assessing as he sat down on the chair that faced Harry and sipped delicately at his tea. Harry did the same thing, and choked. The tea was far hotter than he'd thought it would be, with a spicy, boiling aftertaste that reminded him more of Firewhisky.

"It's called Phoenix's Brew for a _reason_, Potter," Malfoy said, and his eyes were bright as he watched Harry spluttering.

_Still kind of a git, then. _But Harry found it difficult to blame him for it when he probably did look pretty funny. He swallowed even more delicately this time, then set the tea on a table beside the couch to cool for a bit. "All right," he said. "The Divination professor, Plumm, has been trying to give me a reading for a long time, but I only gave in because I thought that she might have been making a true prophecy. Her voice sounded like Trelawney's the one time I heard her give a true prophecy." Well, technically it was twice, given that he had heard Trelawney's voice speaking the original one in Dumbledore's memory, but Harry still didn't really like talking about that one to anyone else. Too many bad memories.

* * *

Draco raised his eyebrows. He hadn't expected that much from Potter right away, or at least not without more wrangling. He leaned back, taking another small sip of his own, and watched the line of Potter's throat, the shine of his eyes, the motions of his hands, all the things that might tell Draco if he was lying.

But no, he didn't seem to be. He looked at Draco with the same tranquil expression in his eyes no matter how long Draco studied him, and waited in silence. Draco wondered why he wasn't telling the rest of the story, and raised his eyebrows higher.

Potter shrugged, which was an uncouth habit of a piece with the poor manners he had displayed so far. "I thought you might not believe me," he said. "I asked for a vision in the crystal ball, since I thought that would take less time than any other way."

"And your time is important," Draco murmured, nodding wisely.

Potter narrowed his eyes, but when Draco said nothing else, he shrugged a second time—Draco curled his lip—and said, "Well, it is," with a lack of fuss that made Draco respect him a bit more. "I thought that she probably didn't have anything to say and only wanted to gain attention for her 'gifts.' She did show me a vision, though, and it involved you. It showed us sitting together in a garden, holding hands and watching some children perform accidental magic. At least, I _hope _it was accidental magic. They were too young for wands, and anyway, I didn't see any on them at the time."

Draco stared at him. Then he worked spit into his mouth and demanded, "You're saying that we were _married _in the vision?" He wondered for a moment whether Potter really had come here just to make fun of him.

"I didn't see rings," Potter said, which proved he had learned some precision since Draco had known him. "But we looked contented and happy to be together, and the way we held hands…" He shook his head, frowning. "We looked _relaxed _around each other."

"Are you sure it wasn't a joke that this Plumm professor was playing?" That was the explanation that would have occurred immediately to Draco, although he reckoned that he shouldn't have been surprised it wouldn't immediately come clear to Potter. He was used to seeing himself as important, the stuff of prophecy, and wouldn't accept easily that it was only a trick when it had proven true once before.

Potter sneered at him. "It could have been. But she acted as if she believed it, and real or not, she could use it as a way to spread rumors. So I came and thought that I should let you know where they came from, if the rumors started flying."

"You couldn't have written this in a letter?" Draco took another sip of the Phoenix's Brew tea. "It seems simple enough." _If preposterous, absurd, and something that no one sane will believe for a second._

_Too bad that the general public is not often sane where Potter is concerned._ They had believed, or some of them had, that he was a half-fairy for a fortnight last year, merely on the basis of Rita Skeeter saying so.

"There _are _those who try to get hold of my post." Potter leaned back in his chair and picked up his cup again. This time, he at least looked like he was sipping it properly and getting some taste out of it instead of spewing it everywhere. Draco watched him swallow. "I knew you wouldn't appreciate it if someone else found that letter and decided to spread the rumor."

Reluctantly, Draco had to incline his head. Potter had shown good judgment and taste in that much. Regrettable that he could not do so in every aspect of his life. "All right. Was that all you wanted to tell me?"

Potter nodded, sipped again, and stood as if he meant to take his leave. "You might make more credible threats to Plumm than I could."

He started to turn away, and Draco sat up before he could stop himself. "And that's _it_, Potter? You come all the way out to my flat at eight in the morning to tell me that, and nothing else?"

Potter turned around, raising his eyebrows in a way that Draco could appreciate. It was close to the way he would have done it, though filled with surprise rather than the disdain that Draco would have tried to add to it. "Well, yes. There's nothing else, and you have all the relevant details. Besides, with Apparition a flat in the middle of Chemic Alley isn't so far."

Draco hissed under his breath as he stood. He didn't know, in one part of him, why he was reacting this way. A business meeting with one of his associates or suppliers would have gone in much the same manner: limited interaction, brief and clear statements, assurances that all facts were correct after a few questions. And Potter deserved less time from him than people Draco had worked with for years.

But now…

He felt his hands closing into claws, and it took quite a lot to wipe his face clear of that and maintain a pleasant expression. "I expected more details," he said. "For example, do you believe the vision is real?"

Potter snorted. "Merlin, no! It's far more likely, as you said, that she was playing a prank. Or, if it was real, that it sprang from some property of the crystal ball, or that it means something else. One thing I _did _learn in Divination—Trelawney could hardly help teaching me—was that visions are often symbolic. For all I know, what it means is that you'll invent a healing potion that benefits the children I'll have one day."

"About that," Draco said. "Haven't you left it rather late?"

"What?" Potter cast a glance down the stairs as if all he wanted was to escape Draco's ghastly presence.

"Having children. I expected to see you settled and married by now." Draco edged a step closer, wondering as he went what he hoped for. More of the coolness leavened by appalling manners that he had seen so far, or amusement, or rage?

This wasn't a meeting with a business associate. He could accept that now. He wanted far more of Potter than he would have of that hypothetical associate, and his breath came fast and hungry with it.

* * *

_Well, damn._

Harry had noticed Malfoy was attractive, when he first came in. He could hardly _help _it. If the bloke didn't want glances like that and silent assessments made, then he shouldn't wear those kinds of clothes, particularly at eight on a Friday morning, when most people might expect something rather more casual.

But he hadn't thought that Malfoy would ever respond to him with anything other than mockery, so he had put it out of his head. That was easy to do, since he didn't find a mocking expression attractive on anyone's face, Malfoy's included.

But there was something deeper sparking in his grey eyes now, which meant something deeper sparking in Harry. He looked back, and he saw so many layers that could be wrapped around Malfoy, glinting, under pressure. His cheeks had flushed for a moment; his hands had curled; he looked as if he wanted to grab Harry and shake him before he turned his glance aside slightly to hide it.

_Now, it only remains to be seen whether that pressure really has turned him into a diamond, or only coal._

"I haven't found the right woman yet," he said, and shrugged. "I don't want to settle for second best."

"Which a Weasley decidedly would have been."

Harry smiled pleasantly. The mocking expression was back, but he knew how to deal with that. "There was an Auror who taught us, in the training program," he said. "Hazelwood. He had high and mighty opinions about blood traitors and people who were friends with them. He made remarks like that."

Malfoy gave him a glance as slow as the drawl in his voice. "And I imagine that you'll tell me you converted him, since you're here, a full-fledged Auror."

Harry shook his head, and held onto the smile. This was so much easier than it used to be, before he realized that holding his temper could still enable him to terrify people. "I ambushed him in a corridor one night. Broke all of his ribs. Then I set an enchantment on them so that they wouldn't heal the first three times that someone tried to help him, but only break into smaller and smaller splinters. It's hard to repair splintered bones, did you know that? Especially when your attempts to put them together again just make them break like matchsticks."

Malfoy stared at him. Then he said, "Why did you tell me that? That's a Dark curse. You could have gone to prison for using it. You _will _if I tell anyone the truth."

Harry snorted. "Oh, yes. The respective power of our names is such that you could, of course, have put me in prison any time you wanted."

Malfoy's chin went up and his eyes narrowed, but he said nothing. Harry knew why. Malfoy had made a life for himself, and done it in the teeth of all those determined to see him go to prison for his father's crimes, but that wasn't the same as achieving a spotless reputation. Accuse Harry, and a few of the papers would pick it up, but nothing else. Those who had known them both at school would dismiss it as just another manifestation of the Potter-Malfoy rivalry.

Most of them would do the same thing if Harry accused Malfoy, but he saw no reason to, not when he could use threats instead, and Malfoy would probably be smart enough, unlike Hazelwood, to listen to them.

"I could rely on testimony from this instructor," Malfoy said, as if exploring the idea, "and the Healers who treated him. They would surely remember a case like that, and he would be willing to testify to have revenge on you."

Harry shook his head quietly, wearily. "Do you really think that I didn't take precautions against that, Malfoy?"

"What were they?'

"Why would I tell you? Take the lesson I mean you to take from this, that insulting my friends is a bad idea." In truth, he had cast the spell that made Hazelwood's bones keep breaking with Hazelwood's own wand, so the Healers had all the evidence they needed that Hazelwood had been playing around with dangerous Dark magic and done this to himself. He had that kind of reputation, and it was accepted without a murmur.

And Harry had knelt on Hazelwood's chest when he finished the ambush, stared into his eyes, and warned him about what would happen if he told anyone. He could still feel the words burning his mouth, his throat. He had never said anything like that before, and he had wondered, as he spoke, if he really should.

Well. That was the trouble with ignoring inconvenient facts about himself for seventeen years, first because he lived with people who didn't give him much time to think about himself at _all _and then because he was saving the world. Harry had a much worse temper than he had ever thought he had, and darker instincts.

He had learned to control both since then, though. And he had learned when to take risks. It was no risk to tell Malfoy the truth, for example, because of the way he had covered his tracks and because Malfoy knew too much about the power dynamics between them to do something as blindingly stupid as _use _his knowledge.

He came back to the conversation to see Malfoy studying him thoughtfully. "I'm less surprised that you don't have a wife, now," Malfoy said, raising his eyebrows again. He seemed to use that gesture to mean many things, and Harry didn't know what all of them were. "You would have to keep all sorts of secrets from her, and that sort of thing can be trying for a marriage."

"Can't it," Harry said, not giving rise to Malfoy's bait the way he probably wanted, and started to turn away again.

"Wait." Malfoy came up beside him, and touched his arm. Harry forbade himself to withdraw it, although it was hard. Touching someone who insulted his friends and family usually gave him the impulse to burn his clothing, or at least cast Scrubbing Charms. "I want you to leave by the door of the apothecary."

Harry met his eyes for a moment, then nodded. "Because leaving by the door I came in by might make people think we're friends or lovers and give credence to rumors faster than Plumm can. I see."

Malfoy smiled slightly. "Why did I have you come in by that door, then?"

"Because it was eight in the morning, and few people are up then," Harry said. In a weird way, he enjoyed the testing remarks that Malfoy kept handing him, the minor challenges that played so little part in his world—he either had friendliness or lethal threats from Dark wizards surrounding him now—but he didn't want the bloke to think he was stupid. "I can hear your assistants moving in the shop below now. Or apprentices?"

Malfoy's face softened and he let Harry's arm fall. "The Potions Masters' Council doesn't think well enough of me yet to let me take apprentices," he said. "A few years, perhaps."

"You would probably teach them well," Harry said, to offer a chance at a truce if Malfoy wanted it.

Malfoy eyed him sideways, but did nothing more than nod, which could have been agreement or acceptance or anything in between. "You have keen hearing," he said, as he led the way across the flat to another door and Harry fell in behind him.

"Which would be its own trial for a wife," Harry said cheerfully.

* * *

_Well. This has been…interesting._

He could still rile Potter as he had when a schoolboy, it seemed, but on decidedly different topics. And Potter responded with a gentler smile and charming threats. Draco would have sought him out more often if he'd done that in Hogwarts.

_Of course, his story of what he did to Hazelwood could be a fabrication._

Draco didn't think so, however. Not with the way that Potter's eyes had deepened and his hand had made a small twitch to one side as if searching for his wand. Or a sword. And as he had no desire to have a spell like that inflicted on himself, he would refrain from insulting the Weasleys. It wasn't as if Potter would stay long.

_Or as if the vision that the professor had is true._

There was more than one reason he had wanted Potter to leave via the door of the apothecary, and that was the political capital it would give him if people saw the brightest star in the Ministry's firmament departing as if after a business discussion. From the faint twitch that tugged at the corner of Potter's smile, he knew that, when he saw the gaping, awed eyes and mouths of Draco's assistants if not before. He even turned around and shook Draco's hand as they stood in the doorway, his grip firm and his expression bright with suppressed laughter.

"Farewell, Potions master Malfoy," he said, in a perfect, stentorian voice. "Do contact me if you require further assistance."

Draco inclined his head back as gracefully as he had upstairs and kept his eyes on Potter's. They had never shared a joke like this before, but Potter played his part, sweeping one impersonal glance around the room before he walked down the street. He made the plain, almost Muggle clothes he wore look better than formal Auror robes, Draco had to admit.

He turned back and found that most of his assistants looked properly impressed—except for Campion Fipps, the newest, an awkward boy with hair and eyes the color of clay. He caught Draco's gaze and immediately flushed and dropped a cauldron.

_A crush on Potter? Or something else, something like a reaction to an Auror? _Draco made a mental note to investigate that later and then returned to his flat, intending to muse more on the unexpectedly prickly and delightful conversation.


	3. In an Investigative Mood

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Three—In an Investigative Mood_

"Tell me what you think of this."

Harry reached up just in time to catch the file that Ron tossed him. He rolled his eyes at his partner's back. Sometimes Ron seemed to think that they were still in school and Harry still practiced Quidditch every day. The throws that Ron thought were "easy" would have defied some skilled Seekers to catch them.

Harry flipped open the cover and glanced down at the photographs inside it, prepared for pictures of murder or torture. That was the majority of the cases they handled, after all. Word had got around the Department that Potter and Weasley were unfazed by images and wounds that made other Aurors vomit all over their boots.

He could have told them that it was less the war experience—the way that some of the Aurors wisely murmured that it was—and more because he trusted his magic to take care of him against almost all the threats out there, and Ron trusted him. He faced Dark wizards who challenged him, but fewer and fewer of them as the years went by. By the time one was thirty, Harry thought, one mostly knew oneself, and he knew that he was stronger and tougher than most people. No offense to the criminals who thought they were the first in the world to think of illegal trade in human skins or the first to combine the Unforgivables. Long might they commit their stupid crimes and make his life more interesting.

But he didn't see any photographs. Or, at least, they seemed to focus on the surface of a golden wheel that was set with blue jewels but not stained with blood. Frowning, Harry turned the folder around and cocked his head, trying to see and understand what he was seeing.

In a few moments, he knew, and rolled his eyes. "Ron," he said. "I don't care what the Gamblers' Clock says." He slammed the file down on the desk and folded his arms, making sure to have his second-best scowl ready by the time Ron turned around. His _best _scowl wasn't one that he would give a friend.

"Do you really think it's coincidence that it showed midnight at the hour when every dog in the city started howling?" Ron asked, lowering his voice and darting a glance over his shoulder as though he thought the clock itself would be floating behind them to listen to what he was saying about it. "_I_ don't."

Harry put a hand over his face and shook his head. Ron's newfound fascination with Divination extended to thinking that all sorts of superstitions were true. The Gamblers' Clock was a wizarding artifact in Amsterdam that supposedly chimed out the hours of momentous events, including one's death or the winning of a great fortune, if the right person approached it and asked the right question.

"Is this where I think that it probably _was _midnight, and the dogs were howling because of Muggle sirens or bells ringing?" Harry demanded.

Ron paused and blinked at him. Harry rolled his eyes back. Ron seemed to think it was unfair for Harry to make educated guesses.

"Well, it was midnight at the time, sure," Ron conceded slowly. "But that doesn't mean the Gamblers' Clock _always _chimes midnight at the exact same time other clocks do, you know! It's independent of the other clocks in the world and what they're doing." He nodded several times, then let it go when he realized he wasn't convincing Harry, and leaned earnestly forwards. "I just think the Gamblers' Clock is a genuine magical phenomenon that deserves to be investigated, that's all."

"Yeah," Harry said. "Probably. But not by us, when it's not Dark magic, and when it's in another country." He tapped his fingers on the desk. "The real file, please? Or hasn't Oakbeam given us any this morning?"

Ron's sigh probably could have made McGonagall feel guilty, but he handed the file over. Harry shook his head as he took it. He understood Ron's mindset, or thought he did; since he had married Hermione and no longer bickered with her as much, Ron needed something else to obsess about. He had gone through intense interests in beetles, in Quidditch—though that one was more recurring, really—in Weasley family history, and in Wizengamot politics. At least an interest in Divination was a little more bearable than the hours that Harry had spent listening to Ron declaim on old legal procedure and precedents.

The opening of the file made Harry wince. Yes, he was used to the horrible things they saw regularly, but there were still cases that hit him harder than others. He flipped past the papers inside, absorbing the evidence in silence.

The body of a young girl, perhaps ten or eleven years old, had been found by a few drunk young Muggles on the edge of wizarding London. Luckily, an Obliviator had followed them to remove their memory of someone Apparating in front of them, and was able to take charge of the case before they could call the Muggle authorities. There was no doubt the girl was magical, or at least had died at the hands of a wizard; the air around her stank with power, and she wore old, shabby robes, the pockets filled with crumpled leaves of dragonsbane.

Normally, Harry knew, they could have identified the victim in no time at all. The wizarding community was small, its children precious, and the disappearance of any of their daughters would have raised an outcry. But no one had come forwards to claim this one, which contributed to the opinion, expressed by a few Obliviators and Unspeakables in the report, that she had probably been a wizard's or witch's victim rather than one herself.

It was hard to tell, of course, when she had no face left.

Harry leaned close to the photograph and stared, shaking his head. The girl's face was entirely gone, sheared away from the front of her skull, and her eyes and teeth plucked out with it. Nothing but a sheet of blood and bone remained from her hair down to her neck.

Harry looked carefully at the edges of her throat, then flipped back through the pages again. Yes. The Unspeakables had confirmed that the edges of the flesh were ragged, as though something had chewed them.

He reached out and closed the file, gently, then shut his eyes. He held back the bile and the vomit that wanted to rise. The girl was dead; vomiting all over the evidence would do her no good at all.

He wanted to kill.

Of course, he often wanted to kill. Sometimes Harry wondered what would have happened if his relatives' abuse had been just that little bit worse, or if he had been Sorted into Slytherin, or if someone had offered him friendship and managed to turn him to the Death Eaters' side, against Muggles. He would have been a terror that made the Dark wizards they hunted look small, he was certain.

That was another reason to control himself. Get wind of what he really was, in the bottom of his soul, at moments like this, and the Ministry would probably cage him up. Or at least take his wand away and sack him from the Aurors.

It wouldn't go well for anyone if they did that. Probably the best thing that could happen would be Harry slitting his wrists or throwing himself off a bridge before he hurt anyone else.

"Mate?"

That was Ron, his sober, concerned, responsible self again, not trying to get Harry to investigate magical clocks instead of magical murders. Harry opened his eyes and nodded, and Ron nodded back. "We're going after this one, of course," Ron said, though his voice rose slightly on the end in a question he couldn't help.

"We are," Harry said, and watched Ron's smile widen. He reflected it back, more times than he needed to, glinting from bright teeth. Then he rose to his feet and scooped up the file. They would start with the Obliviator who had found the body, or rather found the Muggles who had found the body, and go from there.

Somewhere out there was someone who had killed this girl, and Harry would plot, and plan, and be careful, and be patient, for the time when that person and the end of his wand could meet.

* * *

"Sir? You wanted to see me, sir?"

Draco rolled his eyes and turned away from the stained cauldron he had been considering to see if he could scrub and sell. That would be Campion, of course. He was always like that, the meekest and most respectful of Draco's assistants, as though he thought he could make up for his relationship to a Wizengamot member by cringing. Draco would have to teach him better than that, and soon. A Potions master needed either arrogance or an air of quiet confidence, and Campion would learn neither this way.

"Yes, Campion." Draco tilted his head towards the document-piled chair next to the lab-table, but Campion missed the gesture and stood there, blinking. Draco snapped his fingers, and this time Campion jumped, then reached out and began to clean off the chair, head ducked all the time. He seemed to think looking up would earn him a blow. Draco shook his head, confident the young man wouldn't look up in time to see him. _Pitiful that this is the future of Potions mastery. _

But Campion did have talent, or Draco would have sent him from his service the moment he discovered he didn't. That was enough to win a _bit _of indulgence, namely that Draco waited until Campion had sat down on the chair and hunched over with his hands clasped in front of him before he launched into his attack. "Why did you make that face when you saw Auror Potter this morning, Campion?" He had thought about saying _the Chosen One _instead, to impress Campion with their acquaintance, but he doubted he could keep a sneer out of his voice when saying that title, even all these years later.

The boy flinched, looking for a moment like the frog that Draco had dropped into his boiling cauldron that morning. Then he lifted his head and gave a wobbly swallow. "I—I was surprised to see him. Sir."

"Yes," Draco said, fascinated to note that Campion's eyes were meeting his directly for almost the first time since Draco had agreed to take him on. _Potter gives him courage? Or the desire to keep his secret does. _"But why? You know, of course, that Aurors like Potter regularly keep former Death Eaters and the businesses they run under surveillance."

Campion licked his lips. Then he said, "But I hadn't seen him here before, sir. I thought—I thought they would send him to bigger targets, sir. That bringing him here would be beneath his dignity, sir."

Draco gave him a thin smile. "I'm sure that he wouldn't join you in thinking so, Campion. After all, he has been humble most of his life." _Lies mixed with the truth make both stronger. _Campion was likely to misjudge him if he didn't know how Draco really felt about Potter, and thus likely to misjudge his actions, should they be in circumstances where Campion tried to allege that Draco had bribed Potter or something similar.

Campion made a negative twitch of his head, and then caught himself, staring down at his hands again. "I'm sure you're right, sir," he said. "Of course you are."

Draco let silence pass for a few minutes. The boy began to tap one of his feet against the leg of the chair, whistling tunelessly, irritatingly, beneath his breath. Draco held his temper with difficulty, but considered sending Campion back downstairs to the shop, since it was becoming obvious that he would say nothing useful.

_I wonder, however, why his extreme reaction to Potter happened, if it was only that he thought Potter's possible investigation of me beneath his dignity. There is something else here, something important, that I am missing._

As usual when Draco thought he was missing something, he resolved to toss a handful of needles at the person in question and see how much he flinched. He pretended to frown into the middle distance before he nodded. "Very well, Campion," he said. "If you need more reassurance, or feel strongly about it, then I can ensure that you are in the back of the shop working on cataloguing ingredients when Auror Potter returns for a second visit. You can even speak with him yourself." That would necessitate warning Potter what to say in advance, of course, but Draco thought that the man he had met this morning would almost certainly enjoy it.

"S-sir!" Campion rose to his feet, staring. Then he sat back down in his chair in a graceless collapse and buried his head in his hands. Too graceless, Draco thought, staring at him with narrowed eyes that he hoped hid the satisfaction in them. Yes, the boy was hiding something, and like many young men who had secrets to conceal, he thought overacting was the answer.

"Is there something wrong, then?" Draco kept his voice gentle. "I know that some of my assistants have a prejudice against Aurors for the unfair way they have treated their families, but I did not know that you were one of them." He knew it was no such thing—as the nephew of a man on the Wizengamot, Campion was unlikely to receive more than the few minutes of trouble it would take the Aurors to realize who he was—but acting as though he was stupider than he truly was had served Draco well in politics for the last decade.

"No, sir. No prejudice." Campion swallowed, and tried to smile. It only made him look more ill. If Draco had seen a client walk through his door with such a face, he would have recommended a Pepper-Up Potion and a Calming Draught immediately. Perhaps also a Blood-Replenisher. "It's just—you'll think it's silly, but I've had a—a crush on the Savior for years now. Seeing him so close puts me off my work. Can I be in the back of the shop when he returns to investigate? It's not his fault, but seeing him would put me off my work." He leaned close to Draco and lowered his voice. "It's nothing personal, like I said. And I'm a silly little boy, but he's one of my heroes."

_If you had told me that five minutes ago, I might have believed you. _Draco sighed. "If you wish, Campion. But you should keep in mind that you will need to serve famous clients and powerful ones if you become a skilled Potions master, and not let your own feelings for them interfere. If someone needs a potion to cure impotency or an upset stomach, you must brew it for them without your shaking hands upsetting the amount of shredded Bubotuber you place in the cauldron."

"I'll remember, sir. Of course I'll remember!" Campion bolted to his feet this time, bobbing his head and smiling as though he thought Draco would forget his overacting. "Thank you, thank you! Just warn me when he's coming, and I'll go." He nipped down the stairs before Draco could officially dismiss him, but Draco thought that less a calculated, overdramatic ploy and more part of the general thoughtlessness of the young.

_Well._ Draco leaned back and considered these startling revelations. Campion showed far more fear around Potter than necessary, even given that some cases of hero-worship could be acute. He had shown no sign of realizing that the deception of an investigation Potter and Draco had shown was a cover for something else; he had also shown no mysterious knowledge of why Potter had actually come there, the way that he might if he had overheard their conversation in Draco's flat. No, the way that he definitely _would _have. Though he did not know the reason for the boy's fear, Draco trusted his judgment of Campion in general as someone who would have been unable to resist bragging and hinting.

So. Something else. Perhaps connected with his uncle. If Potter had been involved in an investigation of the man lately, then Campion might fear being talked to and dragged into it. Never mind that it was extremely unlikely Potter would know him on sight. The young, Draco conceded with the magnificent condescension of a man thirty years old last month, had a tendency to envision themselves as the center of all eyes and the center of all attention even when their elders had far more pressing concerns.

He would write to Potter and ask him if he had investigated Wizengamot member Lucas Schroeder lately. If he had not, then Draco might arrange to bring him back to the shop purely to see Campion's reaction.

_It will mean more contact with Potter, perhaps another detailed conversation._

Draco smiled to himself as he sat down to write the letter, absently Vanishing the badly-stained cauldron as he did so. Such a hardship that conversation would be.

* * *

"This is where the body was found, yes."

Obliviator Alton's voice was shaky. Harry cast him a sympathetic smile, and then began to walk out in a circle from the place indicated, whispering a spell that should reveal any lingering magical signatures to him. It almost never worked when the site was more than twenty-four hours old, but it was the way all investigations began anyway. If any Aurors had missed a simple clue that could lead them straight to the criminal, they would have been sacked at once, or, perhaps worse, hauled into the Head Auror's office for one of Oakbeam's "little talks."

Sure enough, the signature spell revealed nothing but their own magic, steaming from their bodies in little silvery ripples. Harry nodded, then hid his wand with one hand and glanced over at Ron. Ron, sensitive to the slightest motions Harry made after all their years together, promptly engaged Alton in a detailed interrogation about his movements the night he'd found the body. Harry crouched down and murmured the Dark spell that had come to mind.

"_Rursus, rursus_," he chanted, barely letting his lips move in case Alton stepped to the side after all and was able to glimpse them.

The stones shimmered, and for a moment the same silvery ripples that marked the magical signature with the first spell seemed to rise up from them. Harry clenched his fingers close to his lips, and waited. A darted look to the side showed that Alton was still busy with Ron, though, which let Harry cast the spell again. And again, when it produced another shower of ripples but no other indications that the magic had obeyed him.

The spell, when it seized him, made Harry's head snap back on his neck. But he didn't fall, which meant he didn't attract Alton's attention. And one had to be able to bear a little pain, after all. That was what being in the Aurors _meant_. Harry had learned in training that he couldn't go crying to someone every time something hurt. He endured, or he took care of the problem, the way he had with Hazelwood.

Darkness clapped down over him, and pain sheeted over his face. Like the blood on the face of the girl in the photograph, Harry thought, teeth clenched against crying out. It seemed that the Retrovoyance spell was going to give him a stronger impression of the girl's last feelings and sensations than usual. Very well.

Screams, screams _everywhere. _Harry listened carefully, but he didn't think any of them came from the girl's—his own—throat. That meant she was with someone else screaming that way. Or many people.

That meant her murder was less likely to be an isolated incident, and more the product of a group working together.

Someone snatched Harry's—the girl's—head back and muttered next to her ear. Harry didn't know if she had been able to make sense of the words, immersed in pain and terror as she was, but he could. "Useless. Body can't take any more. Get her out of here."

Then someone lifting, seizing, tilting him, her, them, and the sharp, powerful squeeze of Apparition. Harry listened to the crack that followed their appearance, and felt the stones under his back when whoever was carrying the girl threw her to the ground.

"_Frango cor_," said the voice, a calm voice, without much inflection and without much interest. Harry had heard the same tone from fellow Aurors who'd been doing paperwork for a solid week and wanted nothing more than to go _home _on a Friday night.

He recognized the spell, too, and he gritted his teeth in frustration as the girl's heart stuttered and stopped. At least that confirmed the Unspeakables' report that she had died of a heart attack and it was highly likely to be magical. He had gained that much from casting the Retrovoyance and living through the last moments of her life with her.

_I'm sorry, _he promised himself, as the darkness of missing eyes became the darkness of death and he opened his eyes to find himself still alive on the cobblestones. _But we are going to do whatever it takes to find your murderer and bring him to justice. Your murderers. There was more than one person involved in this, and that means that someone, somewhere, must know something and be willing to spill it. It's always more difficult to keep a secret when the Dark wizards run in packs._

He glanced over, ignoring the throbbing, phantom aches on his face and in his chest, and saw Ron watching him from the corner of his eye. He nodded once. He was done, and there was no other evidence to be gained here. The reports from the Unspeakables and Alton had been quite clear.

Ron clapped Alton on the back and said something hearty. Harry rose to his feet, eyes still locked on the stones where a little girl had died, though one would never know that from the scrubbing, both magical and physical, that had taken place.

_I'll find them. I'll find out what they meant. I'll remember their voices. _One good thing about the Retrovoyance spell was that it burned the memories, shining, into one's head, as strongly as a Memory Charm took them away. _I'll find them and give you justice. I promise._

As they headed back to the Ministry, Ron kept sneaking sidelong glances at him. Harry caught his eye and smiled a little. "I'm fine, Ron. I promise. Really, they have no reason to classify the Retrovoyance spell as Dark. The only one it affects is the person who casts it."

"You _know _what it does," Ron said quietly. "The imprint it leaves on your mind and body. How many times have you cast it now, Harry? Ten? Twenty?"

"I lost count at twenty-five," Harry said. "And it's not like it's the only one I ever use." He knew Ron was worried about him being caught and tried for Dark Arts, but he was careful. He'd never do it in front of someone who was suspicious of him and would probably betray him. And even if he slipped, the goodwill he'd built up with the Ministry _was _for things like this, to get him out of scrapes that could damage him and stop his ability to work.

Ron sighed, but didn't say anything else. Harry touched his shoulder in silent thanks, and they went back to the office to start considering files on dead and disappearing children in the last few months, to coordinate the dead girl's case with them if they could.

First, though, an owl was waiting on top of Harry's desk, an elegant grey bird with slashes of black in its feathers. Harry gave it a part of his lunch while he examined the message it bore.

_Dear Potter,_

_One of my assistants, Campion Fipps, is extraordinarily afraid of you and actually dropped a cauldron when he saw you leaving the shop the other day. I have spoken with him, and he tried to tell me an unconvincing story of a crush. I would like to speak with you again about possibly visiting a second time and catching him unawares. (He is the nephew of Lucas Schroeder, so if you've investigated Schroeder lately he may fear being caught in the net)._

_Draco Malfoy,_

_Potions Master,_

_Chemic Alley._

Harry smiled a little as he sat down to write a reply. He hadn't investigated Schroeder, and the name Campion Fipps meant nothing to him, but he would like to know what was happening. And helping Malfoy would be a distraction from a case he could already tell was going to consume his heart and mind.

_And…well, I wouldn't exactly _mind _seeing Malfoy again._


	4. In a Fever of Impatience

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Four—In a Fever of Impatience_

This time, Draco saw nothing wrong with having Potter come in by the front door. He was dressed in Auror robes, as well, and that made eyes all over the room turn so that they could widen at him. Most of his assistants would do nothing more than look foolish, of course, and Draco considered it good training for them. They would serve famous and powerful clients in their time, including those who had to come to them for problems that would make them laughingstocks if they were known. They had to learn to keep masks of coolness on their faces, or they would never succeed as anything more than the apothecary to a small village.

For Campion, the effect was different. He reached behind him and braced his hand on a chair that wobbled from the force of his grip. His eyes were locked on Potter, and his jaw hung so far open that a small line of drool worked its way towards his chin. Draco grimaced, reconsidering his plan. It reflected badly on him not to have trained Campion to a greater dignity, even in the presence of the Chosen One.

But those thoughts didn't seem to be going through Potter's head. Instead, he simply moved forwards, his eyes locked, calmly and meditatively, on Campion's face. He paused once to look at back at Draco, a flicker of a glance that asked whether this was the boy that Draco meant him to investigate. Draco jerked his head down, and Potter immediately went back to the stalk.

Not that anyone watching would know that it was a stalk unless they had foreknowledge like Draco's or watched Potter's body movements to the point of ignoring his face. He had a broad smile on it, and he put out a hand to Campion with what looked like perfect friendliness. Draco nodded, reluctantly impressed. He had heard that Potter had picked up some acting skills by attending Ministry functions, but he had expected nothing this accomplished.

_What else might he be able to act? _

"Campion Fipps?" Potter pitched his voice with gentleness, with a tone that he hadn't shown Draco yet. Draco shifted in place, and then wondered why. "I'm so pleased to meet you. Your uncle gave me a message for you, and I couldn't figure out your routine enough to give it to you anywhere but here." He ducked his head and smiled at Campion under his fringe. "Careless of me, when I'm supposed to be such a skilled investigator."

Draco forced his face into immobility to hide his smile. Clever of Potter. He gave Campion an excuse to go and be private with him that Campion couldn't possibly refuse, and he made it sound as if he were nothing that Campion need fear, at the same time. If he was a clumsy Auror who couldn't track down a young man with a lot of public information available on his movements, then he certainly wouldn't find out about anything strange that young man might have done.

Those thoughts traveled through Campion's head so clearly that Draco could practically hear them. The next moment, he was nodding and smiling and ushering Potter into the private room at the back of the shop where Draco worked with sensitive ingredients and the assistants went to recover from allergic attacks. "Of course, Auror Potter," he said. "I'm always happy to hear from my uncle. If you'll come this way?"

Though the other assistants looked a little envious—perhaps because Campion got to talk to Potter, perhaps because they didn't have relatives as famous who could use the best Auror in the Department as an errand boy—they turned back to their brewing. Draco turned to survey them, putting his back to the private room.

He stood by one of the counters where he kept ingredients that needed to be carefully diced and weighed before they were sold, however, and that meant that his hand hovered near one of his hidden modifications to the shop. When he pulled on a buried lever, it triggered a spell that made him able to see things happening in the private room. It was as though a hidden veil in the air in front of him tugged back and made the space known. Draco leaned his hip on the counter and apparently busied himself with sorting through bat eyes, while in reality he watched the vision that no one but him could see. The magic struck up through the lever to a hand that had touched it and no one else.

There were two chairs in the private room, and Campion settled Potter in one while he took the other. Potter seated himself with his legs crossed in a prim fashion that Draco never would have thought he could master before this. Draco had to swallow a sharp crow of satisfaction. It was _thoroughly _ridiculous that Potter could have succeeded in the Ministry all this time if he was only the intense, blunt man Draco had met on Friday. He had more than one layer to him, and Draco's last doubts about the plan, that Potter wouldn't be a subtle enough actor to fool Campion, blew away.

He carried on with his sorting. The click and roll of bat eyes was more than soft enough that it didn't hide the words from the parties in front of him. And it pleased him to think that he was accomplishing two tasks at once.

* * *

"Auror Potter. I've wanted to meet you for so long."

_That's a lie. _Almost everything Campion Fipps had said since Harry came through the door was a lie, in fact, but this one was a particularly egregious one.

The young man could barely keep himself from running away. Dark stains marked the armpits of his robe, and it wasn't warm enough in the shop for that. His eyes apparently found something _fascinating _just off to the right side of Harry's face, one of the telltales of a liar. He kept rubbing and drying his hands on his legs, and although he laughed and apologized, saying he'd been working with a greasy potion before Harry came in, that was also a lie.

The only thing that mattered to him now was whether Campion would acknowledge that and say anything about it.

"So, what's the message from my uncle?" Campion asked at last, when he had settled into his chair and done enough fidgeting to polish the seat with his arse.

Harry looked around as though making sure they had protections on the room not to be overheard. As a matter of fact, he had heard a slight click and hiss almost immediately after they entered it, and he had almost drawn his wand before he recognized the sound of an Observation Lever. Of course Malfoy would have one installed in this place and not the main shop, Harry thought, relaxing enough to appreciate the man's cleverness. They were easier to use in smaller spaces, and Malfoy would have any excuse he needed to watch over and listen to his assistants in the main shop. This would be harder.

Harry pretended to cast a privacy ward with a meaningless flick of his wand, anyway, and watched Campion sit up a little straighter. That was the point, of course. Lure the boy into relaxation as much as possible, make him think that he'd got away with it, and he might reveal the crime or foul thing he'd been involved in without prodding.

"Your uncle says to tell you," Harry whispered, "that the Aurors are close to knowing."

Suitably vague phrasing, suitably ominous words. If Campion denied knowing what this was about and did so in a way that convinced Harry he was telling the truth, Harry could always pretend that the first words had been a test, either by Schroeder to see if his nephew would confess the secret to anyone or by Harry to make sure that Campion was really in on the secret.

But Campion froze in place, and his blood drained from his face so much that he looked ready to faint. Harry felt saliva fill his mouth and his body strain towards Campion. This was prey.

For a moment, Harry thought Campion would bolt. He was twitching his head from side to side so much that he looked like a malfunctioning Muggle toy. But after a few moments, he managed to draw himself up and clear his throat. "Did—was there any more to the message than that?" he asked.

Harry sighed. "No, he didn't say so. I think that he didn't trust me to know more than that." He sighed again and started to stand. "I think I could have been a help to him if I _did _know more, because that way I would know whether he needs to be protected from a threat." He nodded to Campion. "Or you do."

He turned slowly away, all his senses straining, waiting for the moment when Campion would yield to the temptation, as he surely _must_—

"Wait!"

_Yes. I knew that would happen._

Harry feigned confusion, glancing over his shoulder and blinking. "Was there something you wanted?"

"I can't believe that Uncle only intended you to carry a message, and not do anything else." Campion's eyes were so wide that Harry thought he might start weeping any minute. For all that, though, his hand on the back of his chair was steady, his voice calm and firm. "You _can _do more for us if you would. You can help me."

Harry inclined his head. "I would be happy to," he said, and kept any trace of amusement out of his voice and off his face. Campion had fallen for the trick easily, which was a _good _thing, not a gift he should waste by laughing. "But what can I do? From what your uncle told me, he seemed to think it was a private affair in your family, and that I should stay outside it."

"As I said, I doubt that he intended that," Campion said, and gave Harry a kindly smile that made Harry want to hex him. _He thinks I'm stupid, that there's no way I can possibly understand political subtleties…_ But again, that was good, because it meant that Campion would trust him more than if he thought Harry a complex or subtle thinker. So Harry nodded, and Campion's face broke into a smile. "He chose you as his messenger for a reason. So that I would realize how much you can help and take advantage of it."

Harry hid his smile as he bowed. _Tell them as much truth as they need to build on, and their imaginations fill in the holes. _He didn't always tell the best lies, but he didn't have to, not when omissions didn't linger for long. People would tell themselves stories, and then tell him, and he would know how to act. "What would you like me to do?"

* * *

Draco kept his head bowed as though focusing intently on the bat eyes. His assistants tended to assume that was when he was actually watching them most closely, and would concentrate on their work more assiduously than ever. That had multiple benefits for Draco, so he encouraged the habit.

Or tried. At the moment, if one of them should glance up and look closely enough, he knew they would see his brow furrowed and his eyes with wrinkles around them that most certainly didn't come from concentration.

Potter had used the same kind of technique on Campion that Draco would have expected to see used by a skilled reporter, luring him on to confess more than he knew. The reporter would do it for the sake of a story. Potter was doing it because…

Why? Did he suspect a crime here more strongly as Draco did? Draco had thought it the kind of harmless boyish prank that would make such a callow young man as Campion live in constant fear of Aurors, but it looked now as though Potter wanted to treat it like a conspiracy. And of course Wizengamot members did engage in shallow conspiracies against each other, but Draco would have thought Schroeder smarter than to involve Campion, who couldn't keep a secret to save his life.

He should keep in mind, too, that Potter had come out here on very little evidence to oblige Draco, who had merely sent him a request by post. That made Draco wonder what else Potter might have known, or suspected, or lulled Draco into thinking, if he was as good an actor as all that. Could Draco be sure that he hadn't come here in the beginning to spy on Campion, and not for any other reason?

Then Draco snorted. If that had been the case, Potter would never have told him that story about the Divination professor at Hogwarts. There was nothing to prevent Draco from checking on that, and he could not simultaneously propose that Potter was an incredibly smart and subtle investigator and that he would miss that.

So Draco continued to sort and pick, and watched the way Campion in the vision of the spell edged closer and closer to Potter, eyes wide with an appeal. Potter, of course, would be much stupider than Draco thought he was if he fell for it.

_Perhaps I should stop making assumptions and instead watch what happens._

* * *

"This is it," Campion whispered. "I never _wanted _to be involved. But I came and called on Uncle at the wrong time, and, well, I saw some notes and overheard what he was talking about with Moonstone."

The name wasn't familiar to Harry, but he could remedy that easily enough, particularly as he now he had a name to build on. He nodded, patted Campion's arm, and urged him with an air of breathless anticipation to go on.

"So now I have to be," Campion said, with a great, gusty sigh that seemed to complain about the unfairness that was his life. Harry refrained from saying that, as far as he was concerned, Campion had more privileges than most of the people Harry knew who worked in the Ministry. "I have to identify targets—and that's hard, when I never step far outside the door of the shop without Potions master Malfoy missing me. But now I go and spend time in Muggle places, and that means that I'm more likely to see them." He bowed his head. "I should have gone this morning. I would have, if I realized that you were coming. But of course you're on our side, so it's silly to wish for that, because I would have missed you and the message from Uncle Lucas." He gave Harry a smile that seemed to ask for pity and sympathy both at once.

Harry's pulse had started thundering so hard that it was difficult for him to give Campion the murmur and nod of commiseration that he knew the boy was looking for.

_Looking for Muggles. Muggle places. _

_The girl who died wore robes, but no one has reported a girl that age missing. And the Unspeakables did say that they didn't think she was magical herself, just that she had died because of a wizard—although they admitted that their conclusions on that matter were uncertain._

Harry didn't know for certain. He _couldn't _know for certain, not when Campion had given him so little to go on. But he could feel the snap and click of connection in his head, the sensation that all good Aurors learned when they began their real investigations. There were important facts here, and Campion was hiding them somehow. There were important facts that connected to _Harry's case_ here, and Campion was hiding them.

His superiors would frown on the fact that Harry had got this much information by tricking Campion, and the prosecution would be made more difficult by his uncle's position and power. But the nature of the crime was horrific enough that Harry doubted Campion would be able to bribe or lie his way out of a holding cell. Harry could bring him in on reasonable suspicion, and the boy would crack soon under sustained interrogation. The way he'd babbled it all out to Harry at first opportunity showed that he was no hardened criminal, willing to die to protect his family secrets.

"_Incarcerous_," Harry said flatly, and watched in satisfaction as loops of rope shot around Campion's wrists and bound them together in front of him. Campion stared at him with wide eyes and tried to slide away from the chair where he still sat, but Harry tapped the ropes with his wand and repeated the spell, and then his feet were tied. He slid into a kneeling position, babbling hopelessly, his feet flexing as if he thought he could snap magic-made ropes like string. Harry knelt down in front of him and smiled sweetly into his face.

"I know you know something," Harry whispered. "Interfering in Muggle areas constitutes a crime under the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy. I'm bringing you in, Mr. Fipps. I hope that you can convince the other Aurors you're going to talk to that you really know nothing about this and didn't participate willingly. Not even your uncle can protect you otherwise."

Campion's mouth dropped open again, and then he began to shiver. "You're not on our side after all," he whispered.

"I never _am _on the side of people who do things like kidnap Muggle children," Harry said. He wanted to add something about _and scrape their faces off, _but that would give Campion too much information. Harry wanted him to tell what _he _knew, not what he thought would make the Aurors leave him alone and let him go. He hauled Campion to his feet and adjusted the ropes a bit so that he could stumble along. Then he aimed him at the door of the private room, guiding him back out into Malfoy's apothecary once more.

"It wasn't kidnapping!" Campion lashed out with one foot, but Harry knew that trick and was nowhere in range. He cast a Stinging Hex in retaliation, and Campion cried out and curled up, his feet kicking feebly. Harry raised the hex and shoved him past the gaping assistants and smoking cauldrons and Malfoy's shadowed eyes. "It was recruiting! We were giving them a choice to join us and work with us! Please, you have to believe me!"

"I'm sure that you would like me to," Harry said, and showed Campion his wide eyes and grinning mouth. Campion jerked his head back as if slapped, and cowered in the ropes. Harry smiled more widely at him and urged him forwards with a wand in the middle of his back. "That doesn't mean I have to. That doesn't mean I will."

Campion drew the tattered shreds of his dignity around him as they reached the door of Malfoy's shop, not looking at his fellow assistants, who had stopped in their brewing to gape. "You'll suffer for this," he said. "You know how powerful my family is. Not even your fame will protect you if they get angry."

Harry leaned in so that his lips were just a few inches from Campion's ear, and blew out delicately. Campion jumped, and then whimpered and cowered back when he realized that Harry was that close. Harry left his mouth right in place—the ropes kept Campion from lunging too far away—and whispered so softly that he knew not even Malfoy, at the counter less than a foot away, would hear him.

"You can take me off the case. People have done that before. You can threaten me. People have done that before. There are all sorts of ways to play politics, and not everyone loves and admires me.

"The problem is that I've anticipated that, and you have no idea how many plans I can weave in response. There are people who hate me and want the status quo to stay the same, and there are people who want writhing little _worms _like you to be punished." Campion flinched from the venom, but Harry didn't move, and didn't raise his voice. He had a lot of practice at this by now. "I have no problem finding allies. You walk away laughing, and I'll ensure that you suffer before you die."

"You're an Auror," Campion said, but shock had stolen the strength from his voice, so that if he wasn't as silent as Harry, at least no one but Malfoy heard them. "You're not supposed to think like that."

"No? We're supposed to be the easy-to-beat fighting force that looks the other way when the Ministry needs us to? The 'law enforcement' that you can bribe to enforce whatever law you want?" Harry laughed gently. "Well, some of us are, there's no denying that. But there exists that other faction I told you about, and you can never be sure that some of your guards don't come from there. I'd resist the temptation to immediately call on your uncle for help, Campion. The Aurors who spend their lives guarding the Wizengamot aren't all the easily swayed sort, either." He put his hand in the middle of Campion's back this time and _pushed_, and Campion had to catch himself on the edge of a crate. He gave a few hopeless sobs as they made their way out of the door.

Harry looked back over his shoulder once, feeling as though someone had spoken his name. As far as he could see, no one had—the lips of most people in the shop seemed frozen with surprise—but Malfoy stood behind his counter and pinned Harry with a fierce gaze, and Harry knew he would have interfered if he could have.

Harry shrugged back at him, and turned away to fix on his prey. If there was a chance that Campion could help them solve the case of the dead girl, then Harry would have been willing to do far more damage to Malfoy's shop than just arresting one of his assistants. Malfoy had been unexpectedly helpful and charming to be around, but this was Harry's _job_.

* * *

Draco sighed and spelled the door of the shop shut. It turned out that an armed Auror dragging a brewing assistant out the door in the middle of the morning rather put off the kind of people who sought Chemic Alley on business.

He wished that Potter had spoken to him before he left. Draco had rather thought they were allies, or the next best thing to it, but Potter had seemed to care only about whatever Campion had said to make him suspicious. Draco had listened to the whole conversation, and still didn't know what that was. He could only assume that it related to a case that Potter had already been working.

It was telling, he thought, that he was more upset about the way Potter had left than he was about the day's lost business.

He had turned his back when someone knocked. Draco cast the spell that opened the door again with a faint smile. So some business had not been scared off, but had simply waited until Aurors and observers alike were out of sight.

"What can I do for you gentlemen?" Draco asked as he saw two wizards step inside, before his brain caught up with his mouth and he realized that they both wore scarlet robes. He immediately went quiet and waited.

The nearest Auror was a hefty man with black eyes that Draco thought he might have seen sometimes in the photos that the _Prophet _loved to snap—or had learned to love snapping since Potter had become an Auror—of captured criminals with their hands held in back of them or on their heads. He was more than burly enough to hold down a whole group of escaping criminals. "Draco Malfoy?" he asked, without more than a cursory question in his tone. Draco's appearance was distinctive enough.

Draco nodded.

"You're under arrest for the crime of harassing an innocent," the man announced briskly, and then tensed as if he expected Draco to run.

_Campion. _Potter must have been wrong about his belief that he could keep Campion caged up, and he had complained to his uncle, and that meant Draco had paid the price for inviting Potter to his shop a second time.

Draco turned around and held out his hands. That made the second Auror, who looked less burly than the one who'd spoken but no less eager, blink before he reached out and began to wind the ropes around Draco's wrists.

_Potter. I hope you hear about this and have some answer for it._


	5. In an Interrogation Room

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Five—In the Interrogation Room_

"If you're innocent, then it shouldn't be too hard to explain to us what you meant when you told Harry that you were recruiting."

Harry rubbed his chin and shook his head, smiling. He was on outside the interrogation cell, of course, looking in through a window that appeared like a solid wall from the inside of the room, thanks to concealing enchantments. There was no way that anyone would let him handle Campion's interrogation, not when he had erred by interrupting the confession at a critical point back in Malfoy's shop.

There were other reasons, too, but Harry preferred not to think of those reasons right now. He watched Ron and listened to him instead.

Ron was doing everything right. He had a soothing voice, and he kept leaning forwards, nodding whenever Campion glanced at him. He had even called Harry by his first name, which might seem like a mistake on the face of it—since Campion would be inclined to grant them less respect—but which also reassured the prisoner that Ron was on his side and that he could handle the big, bad Harry Potter as he pleased. After all, he had the art of referring to Harry by his first name down _pat_.

"I don't want to be here." Campion's voice was as low and wounded as it had been all the time they were interrogating him, for three hours now. He said little else but nonsense and claims that he was innocent. He sat there rubbing his arms and staring at the wall as if he could see the hidden window.

"I know that, mate," Ron said, bobbing his head and taking a sip from the cup of cold tea beside him. "I don't really want to be here talking to you, either. Rather be home with my wife."

Harry grinned, and Campion blinked as if that would never have occurred to him. Well, of course not. One thing that Harry thought no one could say of Campion Fipps was that he was less than self-centered.

"So." Ron sipped from the tea and put it aside again, fixing Campion with an intensity that Harry knew he himself couldn't have used. Intensity from him was _too _intense. Either people babbled because he was the Great Harry Potter, or they shut up because they were afraid of what he might do to them. "Look. I know something is the matter. You were telling Harry that. Tell me, and we can get out of here and go home."

"Maybe _you_ can." Campion turned his head to the side, followed by his arms. It was the most motion Harry had seen him make since he came in, and it tugged at him, made his mouth water the way it had when he confronted Campion in Malfoy's shop. He couldn't go into the interrogation room, he reminded himself. Even the signals that Campion was giving off now would be tainted if he did. "I know they won't let me leave."

Ron shrugged. "That's true whether or not you tell me the truth. If you do, and you're as innocent as you're saying, then we can let you go because you're no danger to anyone. But if you don't say anything, here we sit."

Campion blinked again, and then bowed his head and shivered. Harry stirred. Yes. This was the moment that he recognized from the interrogations he did conduct, and from most of the ones he watched, unless the criminal was someone who had committed multiple crimes before or an excellent liar. Water in Harry's mouth, light in his eyes, and if Campion tried to escape, he would be on him so fast that he would bear him to the ground and break his neck before he could make the corner.

"I'm so tired," Campion whispered, a high whine creeping into his voice. "No one told me it would be like this, all those people who were so convinced that they would be the ones taken if they were taken at all. I didn't want this secret. I didn't want someone to tell me, and I didn't want to be part of it."

Ron nodded. "I know," he murmured. "No one ever asked me if I wanted to be part of the war. It just happened."

Campion didn't seem to notice the words, which told Harry this would be one of the more disjointed confessions, rambling things out, rather than working them out with the aid of the interrogator. Then again, Campion's first confession had been like that, and he'd been fully aware of Harry's presence in the room at time. _Another thing I can't accuse him of is being neat and tidy. Wonder if Malfoy knows that._

"I recruited," Campion said. "But only people I really saw wouldn't be missed. They told me to look for the bright ones, but the bright ones have parents, and they're closely watched."

This time, Harry felt the shudder in him like a rattlesnake's tail. That was all the proof he needed that Campion had abducted children like the girl he had found dead, had felt die. He felt the rush in his head, heard the voices speaking about her like she was rubbish to be discarded. He hissed, and no one could hear him.

She cried, and no one could hear her.

"So I chose the ones who were smart in the ways of survival," Campion concluded. "The ones with no one to watch them, or the ones who had parents who didn't care. And I took them, and I handed them over. I swear, that's all I did! That's all I know!" His face was waxy white, and his lips were trembling. "I never saw them again. I don't kn-know what my uncle and Moonstone are doing with them. I _don't_. They just told me that they're offering the children the chance to be like us."

"Wizengamot supporters?" Ron asked. His voice rang with steel now, but Campion was too occupied to notice.

"I don't _know_," Campion said, and leaned forwards, apparently not about to be denied his full share of sympathy as a victim. "That's what my uncle said, _all _he said. The children are offered a chance. They can join us—them, the ones like my uncle and Moonstone. And if they don't, I don't know what happens to them."

Harry clenched his hands, then relaxed them as the window in front of him vibrated. It wasn't enough, it didn't make up for the crying inside his head, but it was more truth than he had had just a moment before. That would have to be enough.

Ron, with that attunement to Harry's emotions he had, seemed to know the interrogation had done all it could, and nodded. Campion was staring at his hands and didn't notice. Harry relaxed further. Good. Ron would take care of it. He would coax Campion through the last few shreds of specificity in his confession—though Harry didn't know how much more there was to be gained—and Harry could return to the office and revise a few more facts of the case. He turned, already wondering whether they should show the photographs of the faceless girl to Campion to watch his reaction.

_He'd probably faint. Which does no one any good._

Marching footsteps in front of him made him look up. He stared. Then he started moving rapidly, raising his voice, since the two Aurors had their backs to him. "What do you think you're doing?"

The nearest Auror, a bulky fellow named Jonathan Wilding, spun around with one hand on his wand. The other one, his partner Tyler Kinzie, winced and ducked his head. Harry didn't know whether that meant he was embarrassed by Wilding's reaction or embarrassed that Harry was the one to confront them.

The man between them, Draco Malfoy, whom Harry had recognized from the back, gave Harry a distant, cool, cutting glance.

Harry narrowed his eyes and immediately shook his head, refusing whatever accusations Malfoy wanted to dish out to him with that glance. He turned to Wilding again. The man had recognized him and was staring at him with a face wiped clean of emotion. "Well?" Harry demanded. "Why did you bring him here? I was at his shop less than seven hours ago. I would have noted any dangerous Potions ingredients."

Wilding's lips parted, his teeth showing. Harry ducked his head and smiled back. Wilding was the one who turned away.

"Good job for you, then," Wilding muttered. "But that's not what we arrested him for, is it? He's here for harassing an innocent."

Harry cocked his head. He had despised Wilding since he caught the other Auror accepting bribes from Louisa Harrow, one of the Wizengamot members who usually worked together with Lucas Schroeder. "Really," he said. "Who is this innocent, and why was he only arrested now?" He prided himself on his instincts. He would have noticed if Malfoy made his living through "harassing innocents," whatever that meant as a charge.

"You don't want to get involved in this one, Potter." Kinzie lifted his head for long enough to meet Harry's eyes. "Really," he continued, when Harry did nothing but stare at him patiently, because his words were so ridiculous. "You don't. This is _beyond _you. What you could have done to affect this has already been done."

Kinzie, who had always been decent, was trying to warn Harry that this was indeed what he thought it was, then: some form of twisted revenge on him for arresting Campion. Schroeder probably knew that fighting Campion's arrest was pointless right now, since Ron was too loyal to Harry and had been with Campion every moment since his arrival at the Ministry. But he could hurt someone he thought was an ally of Harry's.

_Or something more than that, _Harry thought, grimacing as he remembered that little joke he and Malfoy had played the other day when he left the shop. Campion had probably reported _that _to his uncle, too. And now Schroeder would think they were friends, or intimate allies, or lovers.

_If he thinks that, then he should have remembered the lengths I would go to to protect my friends. _Harry flashed up his hardest and most brilliant smile. "I don't think it's beyond me when I'm the one who can usually sense the difference between the guilty and the innocent," he said.

Wilding's face flushed all over with deep color. Harry held his gaze and didn't move. If Wilding wanted to escape embarrassment, then he shouldn't have fucking arrested twelve people on "suspicion" of taking illegal potions, only to have it turn out that they were affected by a mild Muggle drug with a distinctive smell instead.

Harry had been the one to notice the smell and question the arrest in that particular instance. He was only continuing the tradition now.

"You don't understand," Kinzie said, and his voice had gone hollow enough that Harry looked away from Wilding despite his conviction the man would lunge at him in a moment. Kinzie had one hand stretched out, but he snatched it back when Harry looked at him, probably because he'd seen the fire shining in Harry's eyes. "You—you can't do this," Kinzie said. "We all have our orders, and this isn't a situation where you can fight them."

"Isn't it?" Harry asked.

Kinzie, the fool, took that for an actual question. He nodded, blinking. "Yes. Thanks for backing off, Potter. You have to—"

"Tell me the nature of Potions master Malfoy's crime," Harry said. He didn't know if Malfoy's title would impress them sufficiently, but he was willing to do whatever he needed to convince them that they didn't want to tangle with him. "You must have been sent to the shop, rather than coming when someone there called you." He knew Malfoy wouldn't have, and his assistants seemed (rightfully) too terrified of him to have summoned the Aurors merely because one of their own number had arrested Campion. "Who sent you?"

"You have to back off," Kinzie said, miserably enough that Harry smiled. Kinzie shivered and glanced away. Harry moved a step forwards—

And bumped into Wilding's wand. He looked up into the face that went with it, and saw Wilding was grinning at him, if you could call _that _a grin, baring cracked teeth. "You want to think about it more than once, Potter," Wilding said. "You have to back off. You heard the man."

The spark in his eyes said he hoped Harry wouldn't follow Kinzie's advice. Harry showed his teeth back and reached up to touch Wilding's wand, while keeping his hand on his own, hidden in the robe pocket where he had put it after arresting Campion. "You don't want to do this," he said.

"I don't?" Wilding shook his head, and something like a bark came out of his mouth. "If you think you can always get away with everything, that everyone loves you and that's the reason you're never stopped or denied—"

Harry could have said, _I'm never stopped or denied because I'm too valuable, and I can defuse arguments easily, and whenever the Ministry looks too closely at me, they see someone meek, someone who despises his fame. It's all about hiding what you are from everyone except those you can trust not to betray you._

He could have said all that, yes. But it took so much time to speak the words, when he would rather just cast a spell. He hissed the breath between his lips, softly enough no one but him could have picked it up. "_Commuto mentem_."

Wilding staggered, and his face turned pale around the lips. Then he dropped his wand to the floor and released Malfoy's arm, which he had kept such tight hold of all the time that Harry knew it had to hurt, flopping into a chair set outside one of the interrogation rooms. He buried his head between his knees, taking noisy breaths.

Harry blinked and stared as if he was just as surprised as Kinzie, but the blinks gave him the chance to close his eyes briefly and concentrate. Yes. He could feel the lines and links of Wilding's emotions and thoughts, zinging through his own mind now, connected to him and to his influence for a few moments. The spell was difficult to hold, and Harry could already feel Wilding's will fighting to assert itself. Harry couldn't read the man's mind, precisely, and he couldn't make him obey the way he could with the Imperius Curse, which was this spell was not classified as Dark. The Ministry considered the idea that anyone would actually manage to pick the right thought to influence, out of all the possible ones darting through an unfamiliar mind, laughable.

Harry had learned the secret. He didn't try to influence thoughts. He reached out and dimmed the dull red glow of the two strongest emotions in Wilding's mind, anger and resentment. Blown on, they flickered like embers and went out, leaving Wilding probably more clear-headed than he'd been in years, since he lived in their sullen blaze most of the time. It was doing him a favor, really, Harry thought magnanimously, releasing the spell.

Wilding shuddered and snapped his head up, looking at Harry, as if he suspected Harry would try to kill him in the next instant. He lifted a shaking wand with one hand. Harry gave him a supremely uninterested glance and turned away to speak to Kinzie, who kept staring at him and then at Wilding in turn.

"Are you sure I can't do anything?" he asked quietly. "So sure I can't do _anything _to make it worth your while to let go of Malfoy?"

"He's right, Tyler," said Wilding, his voice calm and sane. Harry turned around with wide eyes, as though nothing had surprised him more than to hear such words out of the other Auror's mouth, but he was biting his lips frantically so he didn't start smirking. "If you think about it," Wilding added, "the people who called us in on this case aren't worth trying to protect. Not when it's going to be our arses on the line if something goes wrong."

Kinzie stared some more, then blurted, "But you were the one who said that we should take it because—"

Wilding gave him a glare and shook his head. Harry blinked again, but inwardly, he could feel his heart beating harder and faster with pleasure. He couldn't change Wilding's mind completely and make him less selfish and prone to taking bribes. He didn't _want _to, not when someone would notice the instant he did. But he could clear away the passion of hatred for Death Eaters and Harry himself and make him think about the long-term consequences.

And the long-term consequences wouldn't be good for any Auror who let the Wizengamot use him as a pawn, as Wilding had finally realized.

He gave Harry a stiff inclination of his head, and then turned and nodded at Kinzie. After a few seconds of gaping indecision that made Harry wonder whether he would have to use the same spell on Kinzie, he sighed, dropped Malfoy's arm, muttered something that might have been an apology for the way they had treated him—although if Harry knew Malfoy, he would demand more as soon as he could—and hurried off after his partner.

Harry nodded and turned to Malfoy. He expected disdain, outrage, everything but gratitude.

And, apparently, the expression he actually saw there, since it made him blink.

"What do you think you're doing, using Dark Arts in the middle of the Ministry?" Malfoy whispered fiercely, stepping closer to him.

* * *

Draco could still feel the shock of the magic that Potter had wielded running over him like a snake's tail down his spine. He hadn't heard the incantation, and if Potter had made the necessary wand motions, he had done so with his wand still in his pocket, but he knew the effects. Wilding should not have changed his mind so quickly no matter what pressure Potter could bring to bear. Draco knew his type: all the more stubborn for being contradicted, ready to cling like mules to the truth they had been taught rather than admit they were wrong even when it would be more advantageous for them to do so.

It was a spell that could call unwelcome attention down on them, particularly with the alarms and wards Draco thought the Ministry sure to have. He didn't know what Potter was doing, casting it here, but he thought he could guess. Potter was simply too caught up in his own mythology to comprehend the danger that might attend someone like Draco being in the presence of known Dark magic. Potter could walk away without concern for the consequences; tonight's arrest had proved Draco could not.

Potter studied him without the cringing and the denials which Draco knew such an accusation once would have brought out of him. Then he nodded thoughtfully and said, "Yes, I see what you mean. Come with me." He raked the corridor back and forth, then turned and led Draco down it at a rapid pace.

Because he had nothing better to do and no idea where he should go with his arrest apparently cancelled, Draco did as Potter asked. A door shut behind them before he thought that Potter might have lured him here to eliminate one of the witnesses to his no doubt usual Dark magic. The back of Draco's neck broke out in a fine sheen of cold sweat, and he turned around, calculating the distance from him to the door, Potter's position, and the relative positions of the furniture in the room.

Potter, caught up in lighting the candles that stood on the table with tiny flicks of his wand, didn't seem to notice. Then he caught Draco's eye and snorted. "I won't try to kill or _Obliviate _you," he said, turning one of the chairs around and sitting in it. This was certainly an interrogation room, Draco decided, and tried to remember if he'd seen a window from the outside. No, he doubted Potter was careless enough to have brought them to a place where someone could spy on them without his noticing. "But we do need to discuss your arrest and how it relates to what Campion's done."

"_Has _he done something?" Draco raised an eyebrow and leaned against the chair that Potter seemed to mean for his instead of sitting. "If you're prone to Dark Arts, you might also be prone to arresting someone on simple suspicion."

Potter, astonishingly, grinned at him and folded his arms in front of him, on the back of his chair, dropping his chin down onto them. "I don't know exactly what he's done," he admitted. "But Ron's interrogating him, and he's begun to confess. His uncle recruited him to kidnap Muggle children, the ones who wouldn't be missed, and turn them over to Schroeder and a man named Moonstone."

"I know that name," Draco said, while the floor beneath him seemed to fall away into an abyss where stars whirled.

"Do you?" Potter sat up, and Draco was reminded of the way he had stalked Campion. Although he had made one arrest today and interfered in another, he looked ready to charge out and make another. "Potions master? Wizengamot member?"

"He's been both, in his time," Draco murmured. "Although he only stayed in the Wizengamot for a year before he left. But…Potter, you don't want to get in the way of a project he's started. He can use Dark magic that I've never seen bettered, his rivals disappear and no one asks for them again, and he's made Muggleborns terrified enough that they leave schools in countries where he's lived. I think only Dumbledore's presence at Hogwarts kept a similar exodus from happening there."

Potter only nodded. "And do you think he might have come back here to try and force Muggleborns out of schools again?"

"I doubt it, not if he's kidnapping Muggle children. Though I don't know what he wants from them or how he could stand to be around them, since he's so disgusted by them—" Draco broke off as Potter made a soft sound in the back of his throat. "Leave it, Potter," he said sharply. "We should concentrate on why they arrested me, rather than crimes you have no proof of yet."

Potter simply nodded with an abstracted look in his eyes that told Draco Moonstone was not forgotten. Then he said, "Describe the circumstances of your arrest."

Though he drew in his breath at the peremptory tone, Draco did. He would have expected Potter to defer to him the same way if he was describing a potion. Potter listened with his eyes half-closed, nodding now and then, though at parts that Draco didn't always think were relevant.

"Ah," Potter said, and sprang lightly to his feet when Draco was done. "There'll be an arrest order, then. No doubt with a false name, but any arrest generates mounds of paperwork. If we find it, we'll have a better chance of knowing why Schroeder or Moonstone thought silencing you would gain them anything."

Draco snorted bitterly as he followed Potter towards the door. "Isn't it obvious? They think we're connected, or that I might have done something to harm Campion. They're basing it on my closeness to you, nothing else."

Potter raised an eyebrow at him. "If this Moonstone is as subtle as you described him to me, then I doubt he would have only one reason or motive for anything he did. The same with Schroeder, who's played politics for so long he probably recites the rules in his sleep. Come with me." He paused, cast a listening spell on the door, and then opened it and glided down the empty corridor.

"You're going to a lot of trouble to help me," Draco murmured to his back.

Potter glanced over his shoulder, and his eyes seemed to catch the light the way a leopard's would. "You were arrested after I arrested Campion," he said simply. "Too much of a coincidence to have nothing to do with it, even if I doubt it was for a simple reason." He smiled, and Draco's chest tightened in a way that was not completely unpleasant. "And I pay my debts."

_How many people have heard those as their last words, down the years? _Draco thought, following Potter. _He's changed, with the lack of hesitation at using Dark Arts among other things._

But Draco, despite his irritation that Potter's presence in his shop had dragged him away from the confines of his comfortable life into possibly being noticed by dangerous enemies, knew one thing.

He liked this new Potter.


	6. In the Ministry Archives

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Six—In the Ministry Archives_

"I don't understand how you think that you'll break into someone's office and simply find the papers we need that way."

Harry smiled, but kept his back turned. Malfoy might think the smile mocking, and Harry had no wish to spend time explaining that he found lots of things in the world right now amusing, but Malfoy wasn't one of them. He continued working steadily on the lock in front of him, which was keyed to another member of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement but which he could usually persuade to do his will with a judicious combination of simple charms and more powerful spells. "Because it's late, and most of those people will have gone home," he replied. "Ron's still busy with Campion for the next little while, so he won't stop us, either."

He could hear the sound of Malfoy settling heavily against the wall behind him, but he didn't know why until Malfoy spoke again, with an odd tone in his voice. "You really don't care about the laws, do you? You break them at will."

Harry couldn't help a sharp glance backwards at that, but Malfoy's face was even less judgmental than his tone; he simply stared. Harry shrugged and faced the lock again. One more tap from his wand, and the ward on it broke with a low, sweet, ringing sound. "Not the exact point," Harry said. "Of course I want to obey the laws, and see other people obey them. I don't like torture or murder or rape or theft. I want those things to be punished, especially if the people who commit those crimes hurt others later."

"But you can live without knowing that the criminals were fairly treated," Malfoy muttered.

"Not true," Harry said, and nodded to him as he slid the door open. "We're in now. When I think there's a strong presumption of innocence, the way I did with your case, then I'll certainly interfere."

"But everything depends on your own perceptions of the case," Malfoy said, reaching out to the side as if he thought that he should touch more of the office wall than he absolutely had to. Harry shook his head and caught his hand, feeling the thunder of Malfoy's pulse under his thumb for a moment before Malfoy let his eyebrow raise and his hand fall. "As you will. So you don't acknowledge any force greater than your own sense of righteousness."

"That's right," Harry said, and cast a gentle _Lumos_, the kind that shouldn't send any telltale light from under the door or through the window in it. He nodded at Malfoy to stay behind him and not touch anything, and then began to move his wand along the top of the sheets of parchment on the desk, looking for the arrest order. He would only change the shape of the piles if he had to, since some people were so paranoid they even had wards on _those_.

"Then I was wrong," Malfoy said, his voice taking on an odd shape in Harry's ears. "You haven't changed at all. You still hold the opinion that you did at Hogwarts, that no one else can teach you anything. You still believe your own principles are the most important things in the world." He snorted bitterly. "I can't believe that I thought otherwise for even a short time."

Harry asked the ceiling with a loud sigh why he had to rescue people who behaved like this, and then reached the end of the desk. No, there was nothing about the arrest order on the top of the piles. He waved his wand and murmured another spell, and the top sheet of parchment on each pile rose straight up in the air, preserving the shape but allowing Harry to read the words written on the sheets beneath them. "That righteousness saved you this time," he said.

"From what? For how long?" Malfoy stepped up beside him, and Harry could feel the tight storm brewing in circles beneath his skin, though at least he didn't try to relieve it either by touching something he shouldn't or punching Harry, which Harry thought would have been his first choice. "If I had gone along with the arrest, at least I wouldn't have to become a fugitive, the way I have to now."

Harry paused, then turned and glanced at him. "Seriously," he said. "That's seriously what you think is going to happen."

Malfoy glared at him through narrowed eyes, his fingers rapping nervously on his leg. "Yes," he said. "Why shouldn't it? When morning comes, if not sooner, Schroeder and Moonstone will have to figure out what happened, and they'll send someone else for me. Or simply inform the public that I'm dangerous because I escaped from the Ministry, and that'll be the end of my business."

Harry rolled his eyes. "I understand why you live in terror of the Wizengamot," he began, meaning to soothe him.

"I do not live in terror," Malfoy said, and the spirit in his eyes shone like steel. "Of no one and nothing. I can build up my business again in another country. But I do resent the necessity to flee."

Harry grinned in spite of himself. Malfoy, predictably, snapped his head back and his wand up, assuming Harry would make fun of him. Harry made a little, weary motion with one hand that he hoped would reassure the enormous git, and forged ahead. "No, listen. Why do you think Schroeder and Moonstone sent those two prats at night, and not in front of an audience? They could have done that if they wanted everyone to know that you weren't to be trusted. Imagine what kind of impact that would have on your assistants, and any clients who happened to be in the shop at the time. But they didn't do that. Why?"

Malfoy paused, his head tilted. "I don't know. But I don't believe you, if you say that you do. You hadn't even heard of Moonstone until I explained him to you."

Harry shrugged, and watched Malfoy's lips thin. Apparently, he hated that gesture. Harry would have to wait and see whether Malfoy was a valuable enough ally for him to stop doing it or not. He didn't think so, at the moment. "But I know his type. He doesn't want to cause a clash, a confrontation. Whatever he's doing with these captured Muggle children, he fears interference. He might be as powerful and ruthless and cunning as you say, but why draw attention he doesn't have to? And an arrest order for you, an insistence that you be captured, would draw attention like nothing else."

"He might want me arrested so I couldn't tell anyone about Campion," Malfoy said, but his face had creased.

Harry nodded, answering the doubts that had inspired the crease, because they were the same ones that had occurred to him. "What do you really know? Not much, or you wouldn't have permitted me to arrest Campion in the first place, knowing what trouble it could cause you. Or you wouldn't have agreed to teach him. This was a means of revenge, I think, and perhaps something else. But either way, Moonstone gains nothing by thrashing around in public and making some people start to think that it has something to do with Campion's arrest. The relatives of Wizengamot members receive sinecures and special treatment all the time, of course they do. But making that obvious would be a bit stupid, don't you think?"

Malfoy looked at him as though he had never considered Harry might be wise enough to come up with an interpretation like that on his own. Then he closed his eyes and drew one long, slender hand across his forehead, as though wiping away the sweat of a fever.

"Forgive me," he said. "I ought to have thought of that on my own."

"Some of it, you should have, yes," Harry said calmly, and went back to sorting through the paper in front of him. Arrest orders, yes, but none with the name Malfoy, or even a reasonable approximation. Harry shook his head and began to look for things that might mention Potions masters or shops in Diagon Alley. They could have disguised Malfoy's name, perhaps, but Wilding and Kinzie must have known where they were going.

* * *

_He's strange._

That was the first thought that came to Draco as he watched Potter's bent back and the neat motions of his wand, but it was hardly a fair one. Of course Potter would be strange, when the years and years that had passed since Draco had seen him had changed and redefined him. If he said that aloud, it would be an obvious thought, and Draco had had enough of uttering obvious thoughts for the moment. If he went the rest of his life without seeing the incredulous look Potter had just directed at him, he could be content.

But it was more than that. Yes, Potter had changed. Draco had seen the increasing reports in the _Daily Prophet _about Potter's compliance with the Ministry's edicts, how he spoke when he was told to and went where he was ordered to. He would not have imagined for a moment that that was a mask for Potter's use of the Dark Arts and the way he managed to see and do things—like break into offices—that the Ministry didn't want him to.

But standing around contemplating Potter's backside (even if it was exceptional, which Draco didn't think it was) got them no closer to solving the mystery of why Schroeder and Moonstone might want him arrested. Draco cleared his throat. "What do you want me to look for?"

"The files there." Potter nodded to a cabinet that stood against the wall, with drawer handles projecting out of it that Draco could see at once were subtly warded. He had brought a potion with him which would disrupt such wards—he had gone with the Aurors because he felt he had no choice, but of course he would never go _unarmed_—and he nodded, taking the vial from his pocket.

"For my name?" he asked over his shoulder, as he moved towards the cabinet and spent another minute studying the handles. The wards were woven around each other, thin lines inside of thick ones, and thick ones spiraling back on themselves so that they formed a pattern like some webs Draco used as ingredients. Quite intricate work. He would be sorry to disrupt them, but then, the disruption would only last as long as the drawers were open. It would be pointless to leave clues behind.

"Yes. Or the address of your shop." Potter stepped back and jerked his wand up. The second piece of parchment in each pile joined the first, hovering in the air. "They had to have a destination."

"What if the order was entirely verbal?" Draco murmured, measuring a careful drop beneath the stopper of the vial into the middle of the nearest ward-web. The potion sparked green, the web sparked blue, and then the web spiraled back to the side, retracting into the handle like a cat's claw into the sheath. Draco smiled and corked the vial again, grasping the drawer to pull it open. When he shut it once more, then the ward would resume as though nothing had ever touched it—and according to the ward, if someone used magic to check, nothing ever would have.

"They wouldn't have brought you to the Ministry, like as not," Potter answered, bending over to study what looked like a thick piece of parchment with an official golden seal affixed to the bottom. From his scowl, it might be something relevant. "They would still need the paperwork to arrange a holding cell."

Draco nodded, again impressed despite himself. Well, if he had to enter this predicament at all, at least he had an expert on his side.

The first files he examined were not only unimportant, but boring; arrest orders from years ago, probably kept because the owner of the office had a tidy mind insisting they must be. Draco rolled his eyes as he used his wand to create a small wind that riffled past them. He saw no need to keep such ancient records unless there was precedent for them being needed again, rather than fear.

He paused near the back, when his wind stirred a thin folder that simply fell against the back of the drawer, instead of moving forwards with the others, the way it should have if it was really as empty as it looked. When he reached for it, another ward appeared, brilliant white and shaped like a rune. Draco considered it. He had brought no potion that was meant to contend against this. Besides, he would probably get the folder wet if he tried.

"What is it?"

Potter was at his side, though Draco certainly couldn't remember _calling _for him. He stiffened his shoulders and answered, "A rune. I don't know what it means or why it's above this particular folder." He indicated the one he meant, careful not to move his finger so near that the rune would ignite on the nail.

Potter's eyes narrowed, and his hand, held low at his side, snapped open again. "I've seen that before," he said. "And the wards on the cabinet should have been considerably more complicated if she had said something like _that _to protect."

Draco wanted to know what "that" was, but didn't think it a good idea to ask at the moment. He watched instead as Potter murmured a long, flowing incantation that seemed to bend back on itself like the wards. The rune rose higher above the folder, blazing at him like a newly-hatched dragon.

Potter hissed back at it, sounding unimpressed. Then the hissing continued, and Draco half-closed his eyes, feeling it in his body, feeling the Parseltongue tug at his guts and at his memories. The last time he had heard it spoken, it came from the lips of the Dark Lord.

But the Dark Lord had been destroyed by the man at his side, and it was not in Draco's nature to continually dwell on something he could not change. He stood listening again, and after a moment, Potter jerked his head down in what seemed like a final nod and finished the hisses with a neat little tying-off hiss.

The rune sank back down, floating towards the bottom of the drawer. It vanished as it moved. Potter chuckled, and then reached out and picked up the thin folder that the rune had defended, turning it around so he could study it for any more magical defenses.

Draco found his voice with difficulty. "Where did you learn to do that?"

"Hmmm?" Potter had evidently not found any more defenses, since he opened the folder. "Oh, I was in a tight corner once, and I tried that because there wasn't any reason not to, and—"

Abruptly he stopped speaking. Draco craned his neck, wondering what in the world could be so shocking that Potter would be unable to say it.

Then Potter snorted with laughter. The sound was louder and deeper than Draco would have anticipated, as though Potter was clenching his teeth against giving voice to it, but there was no doubt that that was what it was. He blinked and stared at Potter.

"Look," Potter said, and tossed the folder at him, nearly making Draco scramble to catch it. He was glad he hadn't had to. That would have been too undignified for him to bear. "It seems as though even members of the Ministry don't always hide _official _secrets."

Draco turned the folder to the side, and a rush of dazzling photographs tumbled into his hand. He blinked when he realized they were still Muggle photographs rather than wizarding pictures, again when he realized what they were of, and again when he realized what their presence here implied.

"Women with dogs," he said. "Men with dogs. Men with horses. I don't—why would she keep her dirty pictures at _work_?"

"Where better?" Potter was still grinning, shaking his head as if this made a wonderful joke. "She has access to stronger protections here, and most people aren't going to be looking beneath those protections for something like _this_. Besides, she might have a prying husband." He snorted again, hard enough to make his cheeks tremble. "And now that we have it, it makes incredible blackmail material."

"True," Draco murmured a moment later, annoyed that it had taken Potter, rather than himself, to pick up on that truth. He would have been the first to see it, not long ago. He had not left his past so far behind as all that.

But this Potter was so different, Draco was still spending a large portion of his mental energy on dealing with the fact of his existence rather than the implications of everything around him. He shook his head, and reassured himself that he _would _stop that. It would simply take getting used to Potter to do so.

Potter carefully packed the photographs back in the folder and pushed it into place at the back of the drawer. Draco raised his eyebrows. "And you're not going to bother resurrecting the rune?"

Potter smiled, and the darkness in his eyes was like the darkness in the eyes of the Dark Lord's snake when she ate Professor Burbage for dinner. "No. This way, when she finds it, she'll know that _someone _knows, but not who. She'll panic at first, and then waste half her time in terror. If we approach her after that time, she'll help us with almost anything in order to get rid of the threat we represent."

Draco moved a step towards him before he could stop himself. Potter tilted his head, his eyes wide and innocent. "What? If you're going to tell me it's difficult to control someone you've blackmailed, I know that, but I've had plenty of practice."

Draco reached out and put his hand on the side of Potter's neck. Potter's eyes narrowed immediately, but he didn't move for his wand, a confidence that made Draco eager to see what he could do to break it.

"Not that," Draco murmured. "I—respond when you speak like that. And maintain the mask of impulsive Gryffindor besides."

Potter studied him as if he was waiting for more, but Draco had said all he intended to say. He remained still, his eyes on Potter, and waited to see what the man would do.

Potter snorted at last, and murmured, "So you want me to get rid of the mask and the voice so you can be more comfortable? I'm afraid I can't do either. There's not a great deal I would do to indulge you, you know."

"You've rescued me so far," Draco pointed out. He felt the momentary urge to drop his hand from Potter's neck, because the darkness in Potter's eyes said he wished for it, but against that, Draco wasn't in the habit of doing things simply because other people wanted him to. Otherwise, he would have shut down his shop in Diagon Alley a long time ago. He maintained his hand in place and saw the light catch and glow in Potter's eyes, brightening them to the point that they were hard to look at.

"Yes, I have," Potter said. "And yet, that is different from indulging you. Call it indulging _myself_, if you like, because I hate seeing Aurors like Wilding and Kinzie get away with stupid shit."

"Indulge me," Draco whispered. He surged close again, but stopped when he realized he would crash into Potter if he didn't. He had expected Potter to step back. Of course they couldn't have that, though, and Potter's faint, contemptuous gaze said Draco had been a fool for expecting it.

"Why should I?" Potter asked, speaking carefully, as if he wanted to watch the way his words would shatter Draco's composure. "You realize we could be heading down the path towards Plumm's vision if we don't stop? Yes, this is unusual for both of us, but that's no reason to declare that we _have _to listen to our dicks. Or our instincts, if you want me to dignify your behavior with that name."

Draco flushed and dropped his hand, moving away. "Fine," he said in a clipped voice, turning his head to the side so he could be sure that he was watching the door into the office and not Potter. "If you insist on talking to me that way, we'll continue. We have the evidence of one woman's obsession, but nothing on me."

"No." Potter shifted the drawer carefully closed and watched as the web on it sprang back into place. "Good work."

Draco ignored that, too. If Potter was afraid they might conjoin themselves because of a bloody vision, then he should _stop _complimenting him. Draco didn't receive enough compliments from people who weren't grateful clients to be accustomed to them. "Is it likely to be here, then?"

Potter shook his head. "There would be no reason to conceal the arrest order too deeply in the piles. Yes, it might draw someone's interest, but until it does, hiding it or making it seem as if it was special would only exacerbate interest. And we're convinced that Moonstone and Schroeder want to _avoid _drawing attention, remember."

"You are," Draco muttered. "I'm not so sure that that's what they're doing."

Potter eyed him sideways, but in the end, chose to say nothing. "So. We'll go on. There are other offices we can try, and if we can't find one, then we have an excellent case that this was only a political arrest, and not one that would be done for any good reason." He looked as if he would step towards the door in the next instant, so Draco politely moved out of the way to give him more room.

He was still looking at the door, though, which was why he saw the knob turn and the door begin to move.

He snapped his hand out, and Potter seemed to take the movement as the warning Draco meant to give, because he reacted as though they'd been partnered for a long time. He snaked an arm around Draco's waist and tugged him towards his chest. Draco managed not to go stiff and fight just in time. He _really _didn't want to stand that close to someone who had just rejected the only intimacy he wanted to offer, but he knew he didn't have a choice.

He bowed his head as Potter held him and waved his wand over them. The wandwork was so complicated that Draco was surprised to hear no incantation. Apparently, Potter had practiced enough with this spell and could cast it silently.

_Let's just hope that it's not another Dark Arts spell to get me in trouble, _he thought in resignation as the world around them flickered, winked, and disappeared.


	7. In a Ministry Cell

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Seven—In a Ministry Cell_

Harry listened. He was aware of his own heartbeat and Malfoy's breathing, and the way that Malfoy shifted against him, as if he would hate to be caught with Harry more than simply caught, but he discounted that. He was listening.

The silence stretched around and ahead of him. There was too much silence on the other side of the door, where the person who had opened it should be standing. Harry bared his teeth, but kept still himself. The person who hesitated there wouldn't betray him into making noise, as he thought they were trying to do.

He looked down at the floor, but saw no shadow. He sniffed, but found no scent. He grimaced in disgust. The person on the other side of the door was cautious, probably because they had found the door unlocked in the first place. The spell Harry had woven around himself and Malfoy, the closest he could get to recreating his Invisibility Cloak when he didn't have it with him, would keep them from sight and casual hearing, but they couldn't simply avoid detection altogether.

The door opened further at last. Malfoy hiss-sighed into Harry's ear, and Harry absently slapped at the back of his neck. He didn't need Malfoy doing that, thanks.

Malfoy stiffened in offense. Well, if it would keep him from being distracting, then Harry was all for that.

Now the person was moving in. Now Harry could see the shadow, which didn't explain the silence in which this person moved or the thrum of magic he could feel around him. Or her? The shadow was heavily cloaked and robed, and Harry could see no clues when he looked up and tried to catch a glimpse of the intruder's face, either. In the absence of those hints, he tried to open his mind and find the truth from what _was _there to be observed, the way his instructors in the Aurors had taught him.

The robe was rich, embroidered around the hem with shapes in golden thread that made Harry's stomach crawl. He knew some of them from his study of Dark magical rituals, and although Malfoy would probably say that he was hypocritical to feel sick at the sight of them, at least Harry could trust himself not to use those rituals without a good reason. He had no idea if he could trust this person, because he didn't know who they _were_.

_Enough_. Harry banished his frustration with a crystal-clear blast of practicality through his mind, like a cold wind that blew aside the tattered fog. He would be as bad as Malfoy otherwise, who was hissing and shifting against him and basically acting as if he _wanted _to be discovered. He tapped the back of Malfoy's knee with his boot, and Malfoy subsided. Harry thought he would probably find the expression on his face offended if he glanced at it, but he didn't care.

The robe slid and hissed along the floor in a way that also spoke of its crafting, and when Harry listened closer, he caught half-familiar syllables in that rasping. More listening, and they came clear enough to be completely familiar. The robe was saying, over and over, in Parseltongue, _Change, change, change._

Harry bowed his head and held it there, and didn't realize his arms had tightened around Malfoy until Malfoy winced and so told him silently. That was bad, Harry thought absently. He had to be aware of his strength and his intentions at all times, or he could hurt someone, much worse than most people could, what with his magic and his temper and his mastery of branches of power that the Ministry didn't want people to study.

But his mind responded to that word.

There was another Parselmouth around. Alive. Either that, or someone had found a magical breakthrough that would ensure they could comprehend and translate the snake language, but Harry doubted that. People had been trying for centuries without finding one. He had discovered those attempts when he began his serious studies, after Hogwarts.

_There is another Parselmouth._

_ Or there is one, again._

Harry watched the person in the robe come further and further into the room, pausing every few inches, but he also busied himself with shifting around until Malfoy leaned against him in a more comfortable position. Then he pushed Malfoy's sleeve back, baring his left forearm. Malfoy stiffened for the fourth or fifth time, not that Harry was keeping track, and let out another indignant hiss between his teeth.

Harry stared at his Dark Mark, striving to see whether it was different from the ones he had examined since the end of the war. If it was brighter, if it had turned blacker, if the snake turned its head aside from the skull…

But no. It looked like the same faded grey mark Harry had seen a dozen times now, each time on the arm of a Death Eater he captured. He exhaled and dropped the arm, letting the sleeve fall back into place.

Malfoy opened his mouth, probably to demand an explanation, and Harry placed an elbow next to his ribs and fixed him with a glare. Malfoy seemed to accept that an enemy seeking their blood probably should take precedent over getting an answer from Harry, and fell silent. But his eyes glittered with a promise.

Harry shrugged. He would be more than happy to give the answer later, since Malfoy had been so obliging to show him that the Dark Mark was still the same and Voldemort had not returned.

But right now, his mouth was dry with puzzlement. Where had they found another Parselmouth, then?

_You aren't the only descendant of the Peverells. And for all you know, you and Voldemort are the only Parselmouths in Britain. Remember that Draco said Moonstone had lived in other countries. They could have got someone from one of them._

Harry smiled a bit as he realized that his mind had automatically connected the person trying to find them now with his case against Schroeder and Moonstone. That might not be the truth here, as he had no evidence that resembled Campion's stumbling confession to go on. He listened, though, and watched.

The robe-wearer had come to a halt in front of the desk covered with parchment. As Harry watched, one pure white hand reached out of the sleeve and caressed one of the piles. The papers trembled and began to grow smaller. Harry squinted to watch them fly up the stranger's sleeve like a flock of tiny white birds.

_Well. That's one way to carry evidence out without someone seeing you do it. Of course, you want to be wearing a less conspicuous robe when you do it. _

Two piles vanished that way, and then the stranger seemed to have what he, or she, had come looking for. They turned back towards the door, although they jerked their head around for one last look at the room. Harry thought he could hear a nose working intensely under the cloak's hood, but he had no idea whether that was true or not. He held his place and his peace, and finally the stranger glided out the door and shut it behind him.

Harry bowed his head, sighed, and waited a count of one hundred, ignoring the way Malfoy struggled in his arms. He didn't want to release him or the spell until he knew that the stranger wouldn't come back to find something he had missed. And even then, when the spell collapsed and they faded back into sight, he cast a charm that meant any sound they made inside the room would be impossible to hear outside it.

When he moved back and away, Malfoy tore himself free, wrapping his arms around himself as though to guard against cold. Harry nodded to him. "You have every right to feel that way," he said. "I violated your boundaries, and I'm sorry. I couldn't think of any other way to guard us from sight at the moment, but I could have if I'd considered it longer."

* * *

Draco wanted to say something, but he didn't know what to say.

That wasn't something that happened often.

He contented himself with a frigid bow of his head, and Potter stepped towards the desk, studying the bare space where the parchment had vanished. Draco sneered at his back, wondering what he expected to find.

Potter, of course, had a spell ready. He had a spell for every occasion, Draco thought, and wondered idly for a moment if Potter had one that could help him find his tongue and deal with what he had felt as he stood there, wrapped in the arms of a predator. Potter had gone still when the stranger entered the room, and then he had wanted to look at the Dark Mark, which Draco kept wrapped up and bound away from everyone, and then…

Draco didn't know why, and he wanted to know. That price, at least, Potter owed him for what he had done.

So he waited, until Potter had stepped back and shaken his head in frustration, muttering something about how it wasn't there, and then said, "Was that person Voldemort?"

Potter started and turned towards him, swaying a little on his feet. Caught off-guard by the name or the fact that Draco would speak it; Draco wasn't sure which, but he _did _know that he felt vindicated. He wanted Potter as badly unbalanced as he was.

Although, perhaps, it wouldn't come because of an arm clamped around his chest, or a hand tearing back his sleeve to bare his left forearm. Draco kept himself from touching the Mark, but it was difficult.

Then Potter swallowed and said, "I thought he might be, because of the way his robe talked."

"His robe talked," Draco said flatly, and moved a step back, so that he would have some space to work with if Potter suddenly sprang at him.

Potter nodded, not seeming to notice the way Draco had chosen to abandon him. His eyes were distant and cold, focused on a patch of air somewhere between the door and Draco's Mark. "The hem of his robe whispered Parseltongue. _Change _was what it said, over and over. Just the one word. They have a Parselmouth, or they cracked the barrier that keeps most people from learning it. Most objects can't be enchanted to speak it, you see. Only something that's shaped like a snake, and even then, people who aren't Parselmouths still can't understand them."

Draco felt as though a wave had captured him and borne him backwards, to their second year and a snake writhing on the floor of the Great Hall, obeying the Great Harry Potter's command. Draco had stood there and felt a passionate fool. He should have been the one with the gift, the glory, and the ability to make a dozen Slytherins go silent and stare, but he wasn't. That had been the moment he'd decided he would hate Harry Potter forever.

But this was different. "You looked at my Mark because you wanted to know how bright it was," he said. "If he had come back."

Potter nodded. "My scar has faded so much that I can't be sure, anymore. Sometimes it hurts, but only after I've cracked my head on something." He gave Draco a quick smile which indicated that remark was meant to be amusing. Draco stared back at him, and declined to be amused.

Potter looked away, and Draco wondered if he had won. If he wanted to. "I think this might have something to do with Moonstone and Schroeder," Potter said. "It can't be coincidence that someone took the recent arrest orders, after all."

Draco sighed. "We still have no idea what Moonstone and Schroeder are doing, or the real reason they wanted me arrested."

"No," Potter said. "But there are too many coincidences, including that this mysterious stranger appears from nowhere the evening both arrests happen."

"It could be someone else," Draco said. He made his voice as pointed and heavy as he could, a series of falling rocks that Potter would be a fool to ignore. This was the kind of thing Potter would simply have to deal with as long as he wanted to remain partners in this enterprise with Draco. Potter might trust his own feelings and perceptions more than anything else, but Draco did not. "It could be that we're tracing several threads here, and missing the section where they tie into a knot, because we're looking at something else."

Potter considered him, head tilted to the side like an owl. Then he nodded. "That's possible," he said. "But how likely do you think it is?"

"That doesn't have much to do with the possibility," Draco pointed out. "We have to look with open minds, not assume one thing or the other is true."

Potter smiled, and his fingers played for a moment down his wand. "I have to think that way," he said simply. "If I take too long to make up my mind in battle, then there's the chance that someone could attack me and kill me. The end."

Draco rolled his eyes. "Yeah, Potter, but that's not the case with almost anything else," he said roughly. "And we're not in battle right now. I _want _to go slowly and investigate this as it should be investigated, rather than assume that we have powerful and terrible enemies hidden out of sight in every shadow. Do you understand me?"

"Yes," Potter said unexpectedly. "You're saying that's what I have to do to keep you as an ally."

Draco blinked and nodded. "Yeah," he said. "I am." He waited a few moments more, but Potter didn't seem inclined to say anything else. "Do you accept?"

Potter sucked air through his teeth and looked at the empty space of floor where the figure in the "talking" robe had stood. Draco moved to the side, and then paused, wondering whether he _wanted _to be sure that the shadow on Potter's face at the moment was, indeed, just a shadow rather than lines of worry.

"I don't know," Potter said. "I trust Ron. I trust Hermione. There's almost no one else." He glanced at Draco over his shoulder. "I'm trying to decide if you can be admitted to that company."

Draco raised his eyebrows, and said nothing. There seemed nothing to say. Even his offense at Potter's presumption was out of place here, because Draco knew it wouldn't matter one whit to Potter whether he was offended or not. Potter would make his decision to listen or not listen.

So he stood there, with half-hatred boiling through his veins, because he felt that he was on trial again, and that was a feeling he had never learned to like. He didn't like Potter setting himself up as his judge, either.

But then, Potter had saved him twice that evening, once from arrest and once from discovery by someone who would probably turn into an enemy when he discovered Potter and Draco spying on him, whether or not he already was one. Potter had earned the right to a little indulgence.

* * *

_This is strange._

It was. Harry couldn't remember the last time that someone had asked him something like this. Criminals didn't ask him things, they just fled. Witnesses asked him questions, but those were informational or placating anyway, just questions like, "And _will _I be all right?" The Ministry didn't ask, it ordered. And between him and Ron and Hermione, all the important things had been said a long time ago. Only if Harry wanted to bring up something that would change them would he have asked them a question like this.

He studied Malfoy. Malfoy shifted once, and then stood still. The expression on his face, which looked to be carved of grey marble, was nothing like the adoring one he had worn in Plumm's vision. There was that, at least.

Still, Harry thought a moment later, he was being stupid. This was giving Malfoy's question too much weight. So he wanted Harry to spend a short time longer considering who their enemies might be before assigning them to discrete categories. That was not such a harsh demand. Harry shook his head.

_I won't let him become that important to me. Plumm's vision stands a greater chance of coming true if I do._

"All right," he said. "I concede that someone coming into this office to steal papers might not be connected to Moonstone and Schroeder. And if he'd suspected we were here, he would have searched harder."

Malfoy exhaled hard, his brow wrinkling as he stared at Harry. "Good," he said a moment later, his voice louder than he seemed to expect, because he blinked and shook his head. "Good. Then you'll allow me to tell you what I think?"

Harry smirked and leaned back a little, gesturing. He could hardly stop Malfoy if he wanted to, not if they were equal allies.

Malfoy gave him a half-glare, and then nodded. "We've stumbled onto something a few people are interested in," he said. "It would not surprise me if political _rivals _of Moonstone and Schroeder came to steal the arrest order, because they're interested in why they would want a lowly Potions master arrested."

Harry snorted. "You can apply the word _lowly _to yourself without bursting from the indignity?"

"Surprisingly, yes," Malfoy said, and his nostrils flared. "I've had to learn certain lessons in humility since I've been alive after the trials."

Harry raised one hand, then realized he didn't know what he was going to do with it and dropped it with a shrug. "Right, sorry. Go on."

"An apology?" Malfoy cupped his hands in front of him the way a child might when cradling a blown kiss. "I may faint."

"What, and bang the memory out of your head?" Harry folded his arms, not sure what to make of the way they were talking to each other, but deciding to ignore it. "Go on."

Malfoy half-smiled, as though he knew that he could make Harry uncomfortable by insisting that they continue discussing this, but courteously refrained. "There's no way to tell at this point," he said. "We don't have enough evidence. Going back to your partner and learning what else Campion may have confessed would tell us more."

Harry snorted again. "Campion had told us as much as he knew. I interrupted too early, of course, but he doesn't have much else to give."

Malfoy stared at him, and only then did Harry realize that he had assumed without thinking about it that he was right, and discarded Malfoy's suggestion. He sighed. It would take some time to get used to working with someone who wasn't Ron. "Right. Sorry. Well, let's go, then." He moved towards the office door.

Malfoy followed behind him, not speaking. Harry wondered if he was angry, and then wondered why he cared. Angry or not, Malfoy had agreed to come with him. That was really the only thing that should matter.

_Perhaps not. But we need to figure out the parameters of this mess first._

* * *

There was no warning. One moment, Draco was walking down the corridor with Potter's back ahead of him, and they seemed to aim in the direction of a particular interrogation room.

The next instant, Potter had seized him and borne him backwards, and Draco found himself standing behind a barrier of white lines in midair, trying to catch his breath from where he'd hit the wall. He reached out and touched the barrier, with sparked at him hard enough to sting his fingers. Draco pulled his hand back with a hiss and narrowed his eyes, trying to see through the barrier.

It grew hazier as he watched, though still nothing like clear, and then he could make out Potter standing in the corridor, in front of two bulky figures who wore grey robes edged with white. One had his wand trained on Potter; the other turned her head, scanning the corridor slowly, as though she knew Potter had cast a concealing spell but couldn't trace it.

Draco held his breath. He didn't know who they were, but if Potter had taken the trouble of casting the barrier, then he didn't think he wanted them finding him.

In the end, the woman oriented back on Potter, and joined her companion in pointing her wand at him. Potter kept his hands out and his head tilted down in a way that suggested he was feigning innocence. Draco could picture _exactly _the shade of green his eyes would have turned, and had to bite his lip to hold back a snort. Making sounds, despite the probable protection of the barrier, didn't seem like a good idea, either.

"You have been using Dark magic in the Ministry," said the man.

Potter tamely bowed his head and moved his hands forwards, slowly, so that they were in the right position for someone to clasp ropes or chains around them. "I plead guilty," he said. "My mind has been stressed, and I know that I have engendered political conflict with the prisoner I arrested tonight. I have no choice but to spend a little time in your care."

The woman sighed, and her posture relaxed. "That's the same thing you've said the last few times, Potter," she said.

"What, everything?" Potter's voice lilted up, and Draco had to admit that, if you listened to the tone alone, he would probably make a magnificent liar, capable of convincing you of anything against your will. "You're sure? Down to the prisoner I've arrested that would stir up conflict between different political factions?"

"Yes," said the man, and by the way he shifted and folded his arms, he was less than impressed by Potter's excuses. "You will spend the night in a cell, and possibly much more time than that, depending on the disruption."

Potter nodded and handed over his wand, which the woman made vanish into a pocket. Watching him, Draco wondered if that mattered. Potter might be fully as dangerous without his wand as with it, although perhaps he couldn't perform spells that would be as strong.

They wrapped chains around Potter's wrists, and he stood there and let them. That didn't fit with the picture Draco had built of him, of someone who argued with everything and trusted his own feelings more than anything else. But Draco couldn't figure out what it _did _fit.

A good actor, perhaps. Someone who could be arrogant with Draco, who was only a new ally, but calm and gentle with the Ministry, his employment and the source of half the power he carried. Draco wondered what Weasley would think when he didn't come back, and what exactly these people were. Unspeakables, perhaps, but he doubted Unspeakables would wear robes that ugly or have left their faces visible.

As they began to pull Potter away, he shot a glance back over his shoulder. Draco could read the warning in it, but he hadn't expected the _reassurance_. It seemed as though Potter understood the doubts he might have and was trying to make sure that Draco didn't do something stupid because of them.

Of course, Draco was going to do the sensible thing. He waited until Potter was out of sight and the barrier spell had faded, and then he cast his own Disillusionment Charm and walked, fast and quietly, out of the Ministry. Once back at his shop, he would send an owl to Weasley giving information and requesting it.

He would find out what was happening, even the things that Potter evidently didn't want him to discover.


	8. In the Dark

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Eight—In the Dark_

Harry leaned back on the tiny pallet they let him have in these cells and looked up at the ceiling. It was invisible in the darkness, of course, but that didn't matter. He had much better night vision than he'd had a few years ago. The longer he squinted, the more he could see, since a faint light did play from the guard station a few corridors away.

The front of the cell was a line of bars, in keeping with tradition. But there wasn't straw or rats. The Ministry, Harry had decided a long time ago, was deficient in the way it tried to keep with tradition. The floor was pale, pure, smooth stone, with no cracks to hide anything in or objects to hurl. The pallet was bolted to the floor, and in one corner was the bolted bucket that he was supposed to use as a latrine.

And, well, there were the wards. Harry reckoned no mental journey around the Ministry's Dark Cells was complete without a mention of them. The lines of grey and black were invisible unless one tried to get close to the bars or use a Dark Arts spell. Then they flared to life and jolted through one's body with terrible force, stealing the concentration needed to escape or use powerful magic.

Harry closed his eyes. Nothing to see, nothing to do, and he wouldn't challenge the wards or try to escape unless there was an emergency. No use in letting the Ministry know that he could challenge the wards and win, because he had walked paths in the last few years that had made him learned in pain.

He knew what Ron and Hermione would say if they were here now; he could hear their voices, conjure their worried faces. "_Harry, sooner or later they won't be content with the Dark Cells. They'll investigate you, and then what will they find?"_

Harry shrugged. A whole lot of nothing was what they would find, although it was easier to argue with the imaginary Ron and Hermione in the darkness than it was to argue with them in reality. He had been careful. He had the Dark Arts books and parchments and scrolls locked away behind wards where no one would notice them in the first place, or in his memory. He had the mask he had been building for years, the mask of the meek Harry Potter who always did exactly what the Ministry told him, and for that reason was a valuable tool. He had the ability to kneel, to say what they needed him to, to put any expression on his face. Everyone knew Dark Arts users were arrogant and impossible to control, and they couldn't control _themselves, _either. Someone who could wasn't a habitual user.

The Dark Cells were meant for holding those Aurors who seemed to be drifting in the direction of such spells, either because of constant contact with Dark wizards or because they were wild with grief and rage. They could perform any other kind of magic, but the pain—so ran the theory—would make them start to associate Dark magic with something they hated. Make that connection strong enough, and it would overcome the pleasure that could come with the use of the spells, instead.

Harry didn't believe the theory, but it was too useful to him to give up. He had spent five or six nights in the Dark Cells, and always after or during cases where someone could easily believe that he had used the spells because of understandable frustration with the process or the suspects.

This case of the dead girl was one such.

Harry's hands clenched, although he had been lying back on the pallet until then with them resting, relaxed, next to his head. Should someone could by, he had to have the ability to fool them. He would look penitent and bored. That worked so much better than angry, he was amazed everyone didn't do it.

He shook his head and closed his eyes. Give himself away too soon, get himself arrested for real and true, and he couldn't help her. He was far more likely to get locked away instead, and someone else who cared less would take the case.

_Ron doesn't care less than you do._

But he did, in one way. Ron hadn't felt her die. He hadn't understood the extent of her terror, her pain, her helplessness. Harry had. He raised the cry in his head again, and the sounds of those merciless voices, and the babble of Campion's confession. All Campion had cared about was distancing himself from it, so no one would blame him. He didn't care that someone had died. He didn't care that the children he identified and snatched went through such horror. Perhaps he would care if he did, perhaps he would throw up or moan or mumble some more, but that wouldn't bring any of them back.

Harry froze the thoughts in his head, and held them there as a block of ice, glittering and turning in deep black water. His magic would rise if he didn't watch out, and although he mostly cast through his wand, he could do…other things.

The other things were his business. His property, just like some of the rituals he had learned and the potions he knew the theory behind and could identify, if not brew. He couldn't give himself away. What he did was too important.

Steps along the corridor. Someone had felt the magic pressing against the wards and was coming to investigate. Harry let his head loll to the side and his eyes drift closed, his chest rising and falling as though he was waking from a normal stage of sleep. When he sensed someone at the bars, he looked up.

The man wore the black-and-silver robes of those who guarded the Dark Cells, the silver visible as fading sparks in the faint light here and there, and carried a lantern that would shed light for his eyes, although none for Harry's. He stared at Harry, and Harry blinked and looked back. He shivered a little, then turned away with a grumble and settled himself on his side, tugging the thin blanket around his shoulders.

There was a silence so long and tense that Harry wondered if this was a new guard, eager to investigate any disturbance no matter how minor. Most of the guards in the Dark Cells knew Harry as a model prisoner, and would have informed the new ones of that.

Then the guard snorted and stomped away again. Harry listened to the sound of the departing footfalls, and compared them to the sound of the dead girl's cry in his mind. One was infinitely less important than the other.

He never slept safe anywhere except in his own bed, with his wand under the pillow and wards singing around him, but in the Dark Cells, he could relax enough to doze. Anyone who might try to use Dark magic here would suffer for it, inside or out. He let his mind drift, focusing on images of chains and racks and ropes. Sometimes he thought they were drawn from his conjectures about the fate of the dead girl and the others who had been taken; sometimes he thought they were what he would like to do to the captors.

* * *

"M'lfoy? It's too bloody early."

Draco bit his lip so that he didn't respond as he wanted to. It was, in fact, almost ten in the morning, and although Weasley had worked late last night, Draco didn't think he could have gone to bed much later than Draco had. Writing his letter, doing it carefully, had consumed almost an hour.

And Weasley hadn't owled back, which he easily could have, which meant Draco had to take the battle to him and firecall his house.

Weasley's wild red hair stuck out every which way, and he kept running his hand over his face, leaving red streaks behind. There were red rims around his eyes, as well, and his lips looked brighter than necessary. _Perhaps his goal is to be crimson in every way._

Draco allowed fifteen seconds to pass before he snapped, "A man and woman took Potter away last night. I want to know where."

Weasley _changed_. One moment he was an ordinary bloke crouched in front of his fireplace on his knees, answered an unwanted call early in the morning; the next moment he uncoiled and seized his wand from somewhere Draco hadn't seen him put it, leaning in as if he would tear out Draco's throat even through the flames that burned safely between them. "_What_?" he hissed. "What are you talking about?"

Draco remained still, although it took more courage than he thought it strictly should have. "What I said in my letter to you," he said. "Potter and I were stopped on our way out of the Ministry last night. A man and woman he seemed to know, who put chains around his wrists and took him away."

"Did they say anything about him using Dark Arts?" Weasley demanded. The sleep had vanished from his eyes. He could whirl around and kill another new Grindelwald in the next moment, and Draco would not be surprised. For the first time, he felt he understood why Potter might remain partners with the oaf. _Not an oaf at all times, and a useful partner to push work off on when he is._

"Yes," Draco said.

"Damn it," Weasley whispered, ducking his head. "The Dark Cells. Holding places for Aurors who need to calm down and stop using addictive curses," he added, as if he could see Draco's eyebrows rising. "Harry's been there—five times now? Six? No, wait, I think this is the seventh. I've _told _him that sooner or later the Ministry'll notice he's using it too much and see through that mask he wears, but he never listens to me." An old bitterness there, in the back of his voice, like a burned-out cauldron, Draco thought.

"He does this often?" Draco asked quietly, thinking of the intensity in Potter's green eyes, and the way he held himself, and the tightly leashed energy coiled under the surface of his skin. He had thought Potter had grown more relaxed morally in the last few years. He had not realized he might be close to an edge that not even Draco's father had ever crossed.

"Not sure why I should tell you," Weasley said, pulling himself back with a brusqueness that left Draco reeling. Then he paused and shook his head. "What were you doing in the Ministry, anyway? What did you say in this owl of yours?"

In a brisk voice of his own, Draco confessed all the important parts of their evening, including the arrest and the way that Potter had dismissed the Aurors. He left out the way that Potter's changes had confused and startled him, and how he felt when Potter touched him. Those were private, for his viewing alone.

And perhaps for Potter's, someday.

_Remember that this may lead to the vision._

"Huh," Weasley said at the end of his recitation, and bowed his head again. Draco held himself back. Thoughts would race under that red hair, if he let them. That much was plain. He did not like the waiting, but then, he had not liked it with Potter, either. At least Weasley seemed less likely than Potter to explode into motion and change Draco's world with him.

"No, I don't know why Moonstone and Schroeder would have wanted to arrest you," Weasley muttered at last. "But Harry's right that I didn't get any more out of Campion. He shut up after a while, as though he was afraid of saying too much, but by then he was starting to repeat himself." He smiled grimly. "I should have let Harry at him. I reckon Harry might have used those memories of the girl's death to—"

"What?" Draco asked quietly.

He'd used the right tone, one that got enough under Weasley's defenses to make him answer before he thought about it. "The ones he got with the Retrovoyance spell. What he saw." Then he stopped and stared at Draco. His eyes were harder than rubies. "You can't tell _anyone _about that, Malfoy."

"I have no intention of doing so," Draco said, while his mental picture of Potter changed again. This time, it had jumped off a cliff.

_He is mad. Or dying. Walking around, breathing, presenting the image of sanity, but mad or dying._

"You have spoken to him about this spell?" Draco asked Weasley. "That it could permanently alter his mind to be exposed to the feelings and memories of the dead?"

Weasley didn't answer for long moments, which Draco hadn't expected. He opened his mouth to snap that a simple "yes" or "no" shouldn't have troubled Weasley so much to utter, then shut it again when he saw Weasley's face. There was anguish there only his parents' expressions during the war had equaled. He waited.

Weasley swallowed, and then began to speak in a bare whisper. Draco leaned towards the fireplace.

"Harry doesn't give a fuck about the living, I think, except me and Hermione, and my family to a certain extent. He cares about the dead, the people who die on the cases and the people who died in the war. Do you know what he does with his weekends? Visits graves. And buys gifts for the families of the victims from our cases that he can safely pretend came from somewhere else. And makes sure that their children, or their little siblings, or whatever, are doing well in school. He tortured two people on the last case. He thinks he stays on the right side of the thin line between Light and Dark magic, but I don't think he does. Or that he can for long."

"Of course he can't," Draco said, trying not to think of those green eyes turning the color of coal, or why it bothered him so much that they should. _Simple. The one who saved me from arrest is now my ally, like it or not. And that means his safety is my concern. _"The Retrovoyance spell does exactly what you're describing, draws the caster in the direction of the dead and makes them more real to him than the living."

Weasley sighed, a sound that seemed to leave him swaying as if he was light-headed. "I know," he said. "That's what all the books say." Draco bit back the comment of shock that Weasley read, and was glad when Weasley's flood of reminiscences continued uninterrupted. "But I don't know how to stop him. It's—weird. He gets so intense about it, and he drags you into it with him. He makes it sound so _reasonable _when he talks about it."

Draco showed his teeth in spite of himself. "Of course that happens. Another sign of the spell altering the caster's mind. I would wager that most of Potter's changes in the last few years can be traced directly to that spell."

_Potter. You idiot._

Weasley looked up at that, with a flash of his own teeth. "You're ridiculous, Malfoy. It's not like that's the only spell Harry uses. _I _would wager that the combined effect of all the spells is changing him."

"Again," Draco said. "Why don't you force him to change?"

"Partially the arguing, like I said," Weasley said. "And partially—" Again the sigh. "Because it does feel pretty bloody good to arrest people who would commit crimes like scraping someone's face off. And partially because Harry hasn't done a bunch of other things someone who's committed to the Dark Arts would do. He hasn't studied it obsessively. He hasn't dropped all his friends. He hasn't become insane and incapable of love. He still values other people before himself. I want to get him some help, but I don't think I could convince any Mind-Healer or anyone at the Ministry to do it. They would talk to him and see someone completely normal. That's what's happened with all the Mind-Healers he had to go and see after our most troubling cases, anyway. They basically return him to work with this happy little note about how honest he is and how he doesn't have any major problems."

Draco closed his eyes. So Potter danced on the edge, never falling over it, and because he was Harry bloody Potter, doer of impossible deeds with no precedent in the history of the world, he managed it.

The cramp that seized his gut as he thought about that was part fear, part exasperation, part desire, part envy.

"So," Draco said. "And these people who took him to the Dark Cells are—only more who'll let him go in time?"

Weasley nodded. "Whether it'll be in enough time to do something about Moonstone and Schroeder, I don't know. That sounds like something urgent."

"It could be," Draco murmured, thinking. His mind burst in several directions, trying the new image of Potter he now had against the one he'd built up over the last few days. He wondered how much of the darkness in Potter's eyes came not from anger or irritation at putting up with Draco, but the spells eating him alive.

_Weasley says they don't…_

_Weasley is hardly likely to recognize the more intimate signs of Dark Arts addiction._

"But I contacted you because you're Potter's partner and I thought I would need your help in breaking him free," Draco said, going on briskly with a small nod to Weasley. "Obviously I don't, not if he's spending his time in a group of cells that he's been in before. What?" he added, because Weasley was gaping at him, exactly as if Draco had done something wrong instead of speaking the truth as openly and positively as he could.

"You said—break him free." Weasley shook his head. "I never thought that you would agree to do something like that, take a risk for someone not connected to your family."

"Potter has taken risks for me," Draco said, and maintained his mask-like face and cool voice. "I can't forget that. I don't disdain it. It _does _mean that I think he should be free as soon as possible because he's the only one who might help me work through the scattered pieces of the puzzle into some kind of true understanding."

"I could do the same thing," Weasley offered. "I know as much information about the case Campion was arrested in relation to as Harry does, and you've told me about Moonstone and Schroeder."

_Not everything, _Draco said, but he shook his head and replied with a temperance that he knew would make his father proud of him. "Strange as it is to say it after our childhood, Weasley, I trust him more than I trust you."

Weasley blinked, and then offered him a flash of teeth. "Yeah. I reckon I know what you mean."

Draco nodded back. Their blood feud simply ran too deep to be put aside like a bad apple. Potter had done something evil to Draco, but that paled beside all the wounds their ancestors had inflicted on each other—wounds that called for blood and would produce ever more of it, because the people who had committed those offenses were dead now and the original meaning had changed.

For a moment, they hovered in that pure-blood understanding, and then Weasley turned his head ahead and listened. "The other Floo just chimed," he said, as if Draco's sharp-edged silence had pierced his ears. "Hermione'll answer it, but I thought it might be Harry."

And if it was, they could end this uncomfortable, revealing conversation, Draco thought, and fell silent, waiting. He heard footsteps, a low voice, and Weasley responding in a muffled tone that sounded as if he sat underwater.

Weasley's head popped fully back into the flames, and he nodded at Draco. "It is Harry," he said. "He's Flooing over in half an hour. Do you want—" He hesitated, then ground the invitation out between clenched teeth. "Do you want to come and meet him here?"

Draco only needed a moment to think. His pragmatism was stronger than any clasping chains of custom and habit, and they needed a private place to speak, something they couldn't be sure of if they came to his shop. Moonstone and Schroeder had had one man connected to Potter's case among his assistants. There might be more.

"Yes," he said, and watched Weasley's face turn puce before he wrestled himself back under control.

"Good," he said, and might even have meant it, in another universe. "I'll tell Harry." And he pulled out of the Floo, and it shut down in front of Draco, who pulled slowly back from the fireplace and dusted soot from his knees.

So. He would have Weasley's help, as well as Potter's, fighting Moonstone and Schroeder, if that was what he decided he wanted to do.

He didn't see that he had any choice. If the two Aurors, or Unspeakables, or whoever they were, hadn't interrupted them last night, then he would have had it already, since Potter would have confessed everything that had happened to Weasley. It might be better this way, since Draco had been able to pick and choose what he wanted to say for the first introduction.

It would work out. They would find some way around Moonstone and Schroeder and the blocks they might set up in the way, and discover their reasons for arresting Campion and Draco in the first place. With two skilled Aurors on his side, Draco thought, the investigation would go substantially faster than it would have if he had worked alone, or only with Potter.

And the less time he spent alone with Potter, the less likely that that ridiculous vision of Plumm's would come true.

He ought to have been pleased by the way things were working out, with the possible exception of the need to spend more time in Weasley's company. He should not have felt this tremble in his stomach that threatened to spread up his limbs and become dissatisfaction.

_I do not understand it. _

But he would understand it in time, as was eventually the case with all potions, all questions, all mysteries. Draco stood and went down to his shop to explain to his assistants that he was about to begin a complicated brewing procedure which would take him some hours and during which he must be absolutely undisturbed.

* * *

"Malfoy's coming over, mate."

Those were the first words Ron greeted him with when he arrived in their home. Harry blinked and ran his fingers through his hair, then shrugged. Well. He would put up with it if both Malfoy and Ron could. He was only surprised that Malfoy had contacted Ron in the first place, which he must have, because otherwise Ron would have had no reason to suspect Harry had vanished in Malfoy's company.

"That's fine," Harry said, when Ron went on staring at him as though he expected some violent reaction that would destroy the house.

Ron rolled his eyes at the ceiling and shook his head. "We could use his help, if this arrest of yours is really tied to our case," he said, and then went into his bedroom, his absurdly starry sleeping robe dragging behind him, while he checked over his shoulder the whole way, as if he thought Harry would vanish.

"Is something wrong?" Harry called after him, through the shut door.

"He told me something about one of the spells you use," Ron called back, voice choked. "Something serious."

Harry rolled his eyes and sat down on the couch to wait for Ron to finish dressing. It was useless to continue the conversation. Harry had tried to explain the reasons that he used Dark Arts before, and Ron had accepted it but doubted it. If Malfoy brought new arguments to the table, then Harry would just have to destroy them with the same efficiency.

_Besides. What's important are children with their faces scraped off, not the spells I use to find the people who would do that. _

Harry bared his teeth as the crying sounded in his head again, and the pain of that death tingled across his face. _And Malfoy and Ron might want to be in at the kill._


	9. In an Argument

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Nine—In An Argument_

Malfoy arrived with a rush and whoosh of flames. Hermione had stepped briefly into the room to talk to Harry, but she retreated with a raise of her eyebrows when she saw him. Harry knew why. She didn't trust herself to be polite around someone who had once insulted her so badly, at least not until she saw whether he was going to be polite to her husband.

Malfoy brushed soot from his robes—he wore pale blue ones, as if this was a business meeting, although Harry supposed that was better than some of the other things he might have treated it as—and immediately looked at Harry. The way his eyes narrowed made no sense, however. Harry was alive and uninjured and still able to help him with his case. Harry inclined his head back and turned to Ron.

Ron sat on a stool in front of the fireplace, sucking at his lip. He sat up when Harry stared at him, but not far. His shoulders still hunched.

"All right," Harry said. "What's going on?"

"I don't know everything about what Weasley may have planned," Malfoy said pleasantly, hooking his foot around the rung of another stool and tugging it towards him. He sat down and studied Harry with what looked like too much interest. _Allies, remember? _Harry tried to mouth at him. _Nothing more, _but apparently he wasn't good at reading lips. "I plan to have sane allies."

"You'll find that in us," Harry said, and glanced at Ron for support. Ron winced and sat up all the way. His lip-sucking had increased to the point that Harry thought he might tear it off before he finally calmed down.

"Really," Malfoy said. "Weasley and I did have a surprisingly sane conversation this morning, I'll grant you that, but I don't know that someone being driven mad by Dark spells like the Retrovoyance Curse can be counted as sane."

_I was right. He is going to bring in supposedly new arguments. But I doubt they'll be new in anything but the mouth they're coming from._ Harry sat up and let his smile meet Malfoy's glare, just as hard, just as polished. "I think you must have read a few books that told you the wrong name," he said helpfully. "The books I read called it the Retrovoyance _spell_, not curse."

"That's because you didn't look far enough." Malfoy crossed his legs and leaned back against nothing. Harry had to admire his grace, and hoped he would keep his mental balance with the same ease, although he would lose the argument. "It is a curse."

"I cast it on myself," Harry said quietly. "No one else."

"And you think that the Killing Curse is any less Dark Arts because people sometimes use it to commit suicide?" Malfoy bared his own teeth now, and Harry noted no sign of yellowing in them, which seemed to be a common affliction of Potions masters. _He's too vain to stand for such a thing, doubtless. _"The spell tugs you closer to the dead, you idiot. It gives you an affiliation with them that the living can't disrupt."

"It makes me a better hunter, you're saying," Harry said. He kept his own voice calm, because that had been the tactic that most infuriated Ron in the past, and he thought it might work on Malfoy as well. From the way Malfoy's hands clenched down, it was working. _Disrupt his balance, throw him off, and he might never recover it. And I would rather not have him working with us than have him working with us and trying to sabotage our efforts._

"No," Malfoy said. "Not when it makes you take absurd risks. Not when it lessens your own fear of death, so that you might die in the process of capturing one criminal. Have you thought, Potter, that the one you capture today might be gentler than the one you miss capturing tomorrow, because you're in the Dark Cells or too injured to take part? Or you're dead?"

"I don't think about the future that way," Harry said, surprised Malfoy would try such a tactic. Yes, Ron had, but he had expected a _few _differences. _Will everything be the recital of familiar arguments? How disappointing. _"There might also come a solid week with no one to hunt, or only minor criminals. Or I might have a course of speaking engagements for the Ministry instead. It's ridiculous to imagine that I should guide my present behavior by fears for the future."

Malfoy closed his eyes and then opened them again. Harry grinned at him. "Am I foiling your expectations for the perfect Gryffindor?" he asked. "So sorry." _At least Ron knows better than to go by what I was like in school, since he was there to see me change over the years._

_ I became stronger. Better. You'd think Malfoy, who uses the Dark Arts himself, would have seen that._

* * *

This was not normal Dark Arts addiction. Draco would give Weasley—and, he supposed, Granger—credit for that much insight.

Potter didn't argue with a manic gleam in his eye. He didn't keep one hand continually on his wand, as he would have done had he feared attack from any corner. He didn't scream that he had no problems and begin hurling curses or objects to make Draco leave the room. He displayed no twitches, no signs of incipient paranoia.

But that only made him all the more dangerous, all the more prone to suffering he could control and not _demonstrate _. Those eyes could darken any moment, the wand could sweep out, and no one would expect it and be ready to counter it because they would think Potter incapable of doing such a thing.

That left it up to Draco.

He opened his eyes again and shook his head. "Have you thought about what might happen if you get caught, Potter?" he asked. "Or if you go so far into the world of the dead that you can't return to the living?"

"The Ministry knows me as its tool," Potter said, sneering at him. The expression was shockingly out of place on his countenance, Draco thought, and had to struggle to keep his own expression mild. "And I told you. Being drawn towards the world of the dead only means I value them more, and I won't abandon them to injustice simply because that would be the prudent course."

"How far would you go?" Draco asked, and poured friendly interest into his voice. From the way Potter stiffened and glared at him, he recognized the new tactic, but not its importance. Draco pitched his voice to its most lulling and leaned forwards. "Would you neglect the living for the dead? Would you abandon a victim who needed your help to chase after a fleeing murderer? Would you spend your weekends in graveyards instead of with your friends?" Then he paused and nodded, as if enlightened. "Wait. Weasley tells me you already do."

"The living come first," Potter said. He sounded as if he were reciting from some sort of Auror handbook. "They always do. I would never abandon a victim to comfortless solitude. Of course not. That's why I have a partner."

"Oh, well_ done_, good show," Draco said, watching from the corner of his eye as that shaft went in under Weasley's ribs. "Because of course that's what's most important. That your partner be the one to clean up the living while you chase the murderers and get the glory."

"I don't want _glory_. I want justice."

"Which is merciless when necessary." Draco gave him another friendly smile. "How many of your captures have died 'resisting arrest'?"

"If you knew," Potter said, and his voice lowered and his eyes were the color of coal again, which only made the desire twist in Draco's stomach, "what some of them have done, what they would get away with if they were brought before the Wizengamot—"

Draco snorted. "Come, come, Potter. Not all those Dark Arts addicts are rich and can afford an adequate defense. Not all of them are sane enough to impress the Wizengamot with their appearance, in fact. And only a few of them are like Campion, with connections enough to ensure they won't pay the price. The Ministry is misguided in many ways, but it would punish the vast majority of those you bring in. Try again."

Potter surged to his feet. Weasley shrank away. Draco didn't look at him, because he knew the importance of not taking his eyes from Potter, but this time his stomach bounded with an emotion far from delight or desire. That was part of the reason the precious fool could never argue with Potter, because he _feared _him. The other part would be that lingering affection, the one Draco didn't feel. He might admire Potter in some ways, he might feel gratitude for his rescue of Draco, he might wonder at his control, but he would never think that he had been a friend and so had to be above criticism.

"What are you saying?" Potter whispered. "That you have _faith _in the Wizengamot as some arbiter of justice? Your experience with Lucas Schroeder's grudge against you should have taught you differently, I think."

"I have more faith in it than you have," Draco said. "And more faith in it than I have in you. The lone killer, the lone _hero_ stalking and striking down those the Ministry misses. That's what you fancy yourself, isn't it? And that's why you use the Dark Arts, why you use the Retrovoyance Curse despite those warnings you _must _have read, because they're included in every book that mentions it. No, Potter is above the rules, he always was, they don't apply to him because his cause is so righteous—"

Potter slammed towards him, covering the distance so fast Draco would have been impressed if he hadn't expected this. He drew the crystal vial from his robe pocket before Potter could pin him against the wall and smashed it over Potter's head.

Weasley shouted. Potter drew back with a cry as the tiny shards of crystal fell down around his ears and the potion within spilled over his head, turning his hair into a dripping, sticky mess vaguely tinted with green. He lifted one hand as though to shield himself against it, too late, and then stared at his hand and the thin covering of potion on it.

Draco pressed near in turn, and laid his hand on Potter's chest, watching in pleasure as the potion spilled over his scalp and the sides of his neck. Traditionally, this potion had to be drunk to be effective, but the time he had spent creating a version that was absorbable by the skin was well-spent. "Now, you'll listen to me," he whispered. "You won't have any choice."

* * *

It was like having a rope in his mind.

Harry could feel the hammering thoughts, the same kind he had felt when he crouched over the dead girl's body and realized more than one person had done this to her, the same kind he had felt when he realized Campion was probably connected to this crime. They ravened and strained in him, directing him to kill or at least harm those who would stop him. The dead deserved no less than justice.

But there was a rope on those thoughts now, a leash holding them back. Harry kept trying to muster up the rage that would let him raise his wand and blast Malfoy without a second's thought—the rage that had driven him forwards just a moment ago—but he couldn't. When he thought about Campion and Schroeder, though, the rage was there, pouring through him like a black sea.

But he looked at Malfoy and couldn't imagine harming him. He took a step backwards and reached out to catch the fireplace mantle.

"What have you done to me?" he whispered. His muscles tightened, but he couldn't bring himself to flee, either. All his sharpest instincts had been dulled.

"Ensured you'll listen to me." Malfoy's hair had become a bit ruffled when Harry charged him and he flung the potion, but not much. He took a step towards Harry, leaning into his face, and Harry flinched back. "You can't attack me because it will seem insane to you to do so. I'm _not _working with an ally who might stab me in the back at any moment. No. You'll listen to me. You can't ignore me. My words matter to you." He reached out and laid one hand on the side of Harry's neck, the way he'd done in the office they'd broken into. Harry's muscles twitched, but he couldn't bring himself to move away from the touch. "Don't worry. You can still attack your enemies. But I'm not your enemy."

"Anyone who smashes strange potions over my head and controls my thoughts is my enemy," Harry said. He hardly recognized his own voice. He strained against the control Malfoy seemed to have over him, that net that bound his motions and his thoughts, but he only ended up rebounding right back into it. It was endlessly flexible and strong, he sensed, and he didn't know a spell right now that would shatter it.

_But I'll find one._

"No, I'm not, Potter," Malfoy said, and his voice was calm and reasonable in a way Harry found himself pausing and listening to. Malfoy's hand moved on his neck, caressing up and down, and then dropped to his shoulder and worked back and forth, as though admiring the shape of the bone. Harry stared at him, hated him, and couldn't move away. "I wanted to clear your head and give you a means of thinking about things. _Think._ You saved me last night, risking your safety to do so, and then you were ready to attack me this morning. Why?"

Harry ground his teeth, and said nothing. In truth, it was hard to remember the impulse that had pushed him to his feet to curse Malfoy. But that was only the potion, Harry reassured himself. Not because he hated the idiot, or because he was influenced by the Dark Arts in the way they'd been talking about. It couldn't be. He had maintained his sanity under the influence of the spells, and he had proven that to Ron and Hermione again and again. Malfoy had no new arguments.

"What you said," he muttered. His own voice was muffled, which he also hated, but he still couldn't move away or come nearer. "It made me angry."

"Because I spoke the truth?" Malfoy was mocking him, but it sounded gentle to Harry's ears. That only maddened him further, because he knew it _wasn't true_, but the minute he felt rage, it joined the other emotions yelping and dancing behind the net. "That must be it. You're not used to hearing it, and you've developed an allergy."

"No," Harry hissed. "Because—because you sounded like Snape. That was the same kind of shite he used to say, that I thought myself above the rules and I _wanted _to break them, I thought I was special. I'm not."

Malfoy laughed at him and stepped away from him, sitting down again. Harry took the chance to retreat to the other side of the room, although he never took his eyes off Malfoy. He was able to glance quickly sideways at Ron, but he hadn't moved. He looked composed and grave, in fact, as if he didn't think it an outrage that Malfoy had smashed that potion over Harry's head.

_Does he hate me, too? I don't understand this._

"You may be right," Malfoy said, "in that you don't think you're anything special. The other possibility is too stupid to contemplate." He went briskly on before Harry could demand to know what the other possibility was. "Anyway. We have to plan. And you'll refrain from using any Dark Arts on my watch, Potter."

Harry snorted. That much defiance was left to him. "I thought you said it was only the Retrovoyance _spell _that was the problem. I can use anything else and you'll be content, won't you? Considering it was partially Dark Arts that freed you last night."

"They get you noticed by the Ministry, fool," Malfoy murmured, the scorn ringing as clear as a crystal bell in his voice. "They get you taken to the Dark Cells. That's the _last _thing we need right now, with them already predisposed to notice you. So. Stop using them, or I'll use a different potion. A worse one."

"I won't let you," Harry said, but his voice rose and fell and then dwindled away into silence. He buried his head in his hands. He _hated _this potion.

"Listen," Ron said into the silence, speaking as though he was trying to intervene in an argument between Hermione and Harry, and didn't know which side to choose. Harry snorted. _Is it even a question? But I forgot, he agrees with Malfoy I should stop using the Retrovoyance spell. _"I think he's right, Harry. This is something big, something the Ministry is willing to arrest people to stop. I think we should be concentrating on what's out there from Schroeder and Moonstone, if that's the other person involved. Not fighting amongst ourselves."

Harry's muscles tightened in what he wanted to be a rejection, but Ron spoke sense, and he agreed. Reluctantly. He lifted his head and sighed. "Fine," he said. "I don't know what's going on, but there's no doubt it's deliberate. And it's important, for some reason, that they not let anyone find out who the children were, even if they were Muggles and so it's unlikely anyone in the wizarding world would recognize them. Hence scraping the faces off."

"You couldn't trace the girl's magical signature, then?" Malfoy asked, and leaned still further backwards. Harry wanted to see him slip off and smash his ugly head open on the floor, but the wish had no force behind it.

"You weren't listening," Ron said, with a severe frown in Malfoy's direction. "She was a Muggle. No magical signature of her own to catch our attention, and either it had been too long since someone killed her or else they took care to scrub away their magic. No signatures from the people who kept her, either."

"People," Malfoy repeated, and quirked one eyebrow up. "Well, that would fit with the way Campion's spoken, and that we think more than one person is working together. But do we know they have a group of employees working to target these children, instead of just one brute?"

"Because I heard more than one voice through her ears," Harry said, and took a certain vicious pleasure in the way Malfoy's shoulders hunched at that, as if reminding him of the existence of the Retrovoyance spell was criminal.

"Very well, so you did," Malfoy said, as if that was something Harry had explained to him before, and went on. "So. The first thing we need is some news of Moonstone's whereabouts. If he's in England, that would explain how he's able to reach Schroeder and the Ministry so quickly."

Ron shook his head. "He could firecall them as quickly if he was on the Continent." Harry nodded to him. _Thanks for pointing that out._

"Moonstone doesn't issue orders like that," Malfoy said, voice so soft Harry felt as though he was watching leaves drift on the wind. "He prefers to oversee the projects he takes on in person. He doesn't delegate, and he doesn't trust."

Ron grunted. "Fine, but is there more than one person named Moonstone? Campion was positive about the name. We don't want to decide it can't possibly be him, or that it _has _to be him, without more proof."

"Of course we have to have proof," Harry said. He was amazed that neither of them had yet suggested the obvious course, but, well, needs must. "And I know the best way to get it. Place a spy on Schroeder. He'll have to meet with someone eventually, either Moonstone himself or someone who helps take care of the children, in order to clarify his orders. We'll get proof when he does, and then we'll have Pensieve memories."

"You speak of spying on a member of the Wizengamot as if it's simple," Malfoy murmured.

Harry shrugged. "It is. If I use some of the spells that I know—"

"None classified as Dark," Malfoy intervened.

Harry glared at him. "It doesn't matter which ones I use, surely, as long as I don't use them in the Ministry itself," he said.

"No," Malfoy said. "It does. Use of more spells creates a spiral of addiction it is not easy to break out of." His eyes were bright and calm, and he looked at Harry as if nothing had ever been less interesting than he was. "Use something else to spy on Schroeder. There must be those who can be bought for garden-variety bribery."

"There's the Extendable Ears, too," Ron intervened, looking between them as though he expected Harry to burst into flames. "George makes them so you can use them from a distance now. And most of the Departments in the Ministry still don't think to ward against enchanted objects like that. They're too occupied with the more dangerous artifacts."

"We have to remain in one place to use the Extendable Ears," Harry pointed out, because no one else was mentioning that and it rasped on his nerves. "We don't want to _follow _Schroeder around. We want a spell or an object that can alert us from a distance. The whole point is to make sure he doesn't learn who suspects him."

"He already knows about you arresting Campion, Potter," Malfoy said, "and he'll learn soon about you freeing me from arrest by those Aurors, if he doesn't know already. We need to learn more about them, but we don't have the advantage of absolute surprise. And it's surprising to me you don't realize that we don't need it."

Harry choked back the scream he badly wanted to give and smiled blandly at Malfoy. "Explain, then," he said. _The idiot wants to be a mastermind badly enough, let him act like one._

* * *

Potter half-tamed was almost worse than Potter wild, Draco thought, studying the rearing blackness in the back of his eyes. With one major difference—Potter half-tamed couldn't use magic against him.

That was enough of an advantage to let him keep his temper even when Potter was obviously trying to goad him into roaring. He leaned forwards and raised an eyebrow. "Make it seem as though your adventure in the Dark Cells chastened you more than it did in reality." _Which is not at all. _"Let Campion go—"

Potter snarled at him. There was something inhuman behind the sound. Draco gracefully let it die away, because he didn't try to reason with mad dogs, and then said, "You've already got as much from him as you're going to get. Lose interest, to all intents and appearances. Visit me openly one more time, and put on another show for my assistants, asking if I'm well and all the rest of it. After that, we visit each other by Floo only, or Apparition into secluded places that aren't as easy to spy on.

"And as you drive forwards an ordinary Auror investigation from your end—which can still achieve good results, with two as skilled as you on the case—I'll brew a potion that should allow us access to Schroeder's thoughts. It will take us longer to gather the evidence, I grant you that—"

"And more people could die." Potter's eyes had that wildfire look.

Draco made himself shrug. "They might already have done that. They could do that every day. But it's better than Schroeder and Moonstone retreating in a panic and shutting down their operation, or killing all the children and starting over again somewhere else. Lull them. We'll find them. We'll discover what the connection is, if there's a connection."

Potter quivered in his seat. Draco glanced at Weasley and saw him watching his friend instead of Draco, which was a good sign.

_Or might be._

Finally, Potter said, "You think we'll learn more that way?"

Draco nodded.

"And you'll swear to help even if it doesn't bring you anything that you have a use for?"

Draco laughed at him with his mouth open. "Potter. Schroeder insulted me personally and professionally with the way he arrested me and planted an incompetent assistant in my shop. There is nothing I want more right now than revenge on him." _Other than for you to have your sanity back, perhaps._

A moment flowed past them, like a grain of sand falling in an hourglass. Then Potter nodded and held out his hand.

Draco stood to clasp it. Potter still looked at him like a chained wolf, but he could live with that for the moment.

_And in the long run, I will teach him better._


	10. In the Midst of Plans

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Ten—In the Midst of Plans_

Draco waited until he had seen his assistants begin to relax and talk over their potions. He had not appeared that morning, although they had, but they knew their place in such circumstances: continue their studies and brewing according to the instructions that he had left for them months ago. So they had, and only slipped into chattering half an hour after the shop had opened. Draco had watched from the shadows at the mouth of Chemic Alley to make sure that no clients appeared whom he would have to intercept.

But so far, nothing of the sort had taken place. Now that it was eight-thirty, Draco thought they could put their plan into motion.

"Malfoy."

Draco's back stiffened. That Potter would whisper and haggle with him _now_, when Draco had asked him several times before this if he had any objections, irritated him. But he tried to keep his expression and voice both bland as he glanced over his shoulder. "Yes, Potter?"

"Remove the potion from me." Potter's teeth and eyes both shone in the shadows, again wolf-like. Draco had ceased to fear him when it came to those, however. Potter had enough power in his magic that he could rely on that alone to intimidate someone. Draco had no intention of allowing the expression on someone's _face_ to do it.

"There's no way to do that," Draco said. "Not without feeding you a special antidote, and I don't have that on hand right now."

"Then brew it, and send it to me."

"Not right _now_," Draco said. "I can do that in a few weeks, once I'm assured you won't attempt to attack me with Dark Arts along the way and ruin all the plans I have for you."

"What would those be?" Potter asked, and his voice was so soft Draco could have moved a step away and ceased to hear it. "Drawing my blood for use in a potion? Trimming my hair so you can Polyjuice into me? Grinding my bones for the marrow?"

"Keeping you alive," Draco said, and began to move towards the shop. He knew Potter would follow perforce; too much depended on what they did now, and they had spent too much time yesterday planning it, for even Potter to ruin it simply because. But he didn't expect much more compliance than that, so it was up to him to take the steps that would produce it. "And making sure you don't stab me in the back."

"I've never yet betrayed an ally." If Potter had had flexible ears like a cat, Draco knew, he would have folded them back in agitated disgust.

"I know that," Draco said. "Not on purpose. But you could cast Dark Arts spells that would bring the Ministry down on us, even if you don't mean to cast them in an area which has wards." He paused with his hand on the door and glanced back at Potter, already assuming the mask for the drama they had chosen to play out this morning before his assistants. "And the Ministry is larger than you, Potter, with a sum total of power and knowledge that is much greater. Sooner or later, you'll make a mistake your own knowledge can't protect you from, because it means that you've slipped up in front of someone like Moonstone, who has every reason to notice what you've done and no reason to forgive you because of how useful you've been in the past."

Potter frowned at him, but said nothing. Draco thought he was already settling into his role, too. He opened the door and stepped into the shop, meeting the shocked stares of his assistants with a faint frown.

"You have been keeping the shop well?" he asked, and glanced around as though expecting to see the shine of dust from far corners. His nearest assistant, de Burgh, whose job it was to keep the shop clean since he was the youngest in seniority, began to flush. Draco pretended not to notice, and turned around to nod a regal dismissal to Potter. "Now that you've seen the inside of my shop, Auror, you may conduct your inspection. I hope you will find no cause to…linger."

Potter gave him such a double-edged smile, such a perfect Auror smile, that Draco might have been impressed had he not known what lay behind it: training rather than genuine emotion. In every way that mattered, Potter was not like most Aurors.

"Whether or not I have cause to linger depends on what I find," he retorted, and began to move further into the shop, casting a series of low, chanted spells that made the various containers and the shelves glow. The assistants huddled closer together. Draco half-shook his head before he could stop himself. Did they really think so well of themselves as to believe that he would have honored them with his confidence about where the illegal ingredients were kept? He had hinted instead, so that if someone questioned them they would be able to _seem _as if they were in his confidence without, in truth, revealing anything important.

"I thought so, Malfoy. Fire beetle eyes?"

Potter had been using real spells, then. Draco moved forwards and touched the barrel whose lid Potter had raised accusingly. "Declared legal two years ago, Auror Potter," he said. "As you would know, if you'd kept up on the most recent regulations." He paused, then leaned nearer and lowered his voice into the kind of whisper that his assistants couldn't help but overhear. "If you had sense enough to _follow _the regulations."

Potter's back snapped straight, and for a moment, his eyes met Draco's, a silent question in them as to what, exactly, Draco meant. Draco smiled back blandly and then turned around, walking to the far end of the shop so he could get a look at what his most senior assistant, Patula, was brewing. She ducked her head over her cauldron, but that was not enough to hide the signs of her usual superior work. Draco made sure to praise her with all the force and coolness he usually used, and then leaned against the counter and began to cast the spells that would keep his balances shining and well-weighted.

Potter prowled around the shop, and whenever Draco looked at him, he had cast some spell that seemed to do exactly what he wanted it to, if the contented smirks he gave in Draco's direction were any indication. Draco shrugged and kept casting his own spells. This wasn't the important part of the show. It only had to last long enough to make his assistants wonder, considering that the last they knew, he and Potter were on friendly terms.

"And this is _it_, Malfoy?"

Draco took his eyes off the scales and studied Potter with a sneer. He stood in front of Draco with his arms folded and his head tilted arrogantly back. His muscles bulged for a moment as though they would burst free of the sleeves, and then he turned his head to the side and spat. That wasn't part of the original plan, and Draco could only be grateful that the spit landed in the center of the floor instead of in one of the cauldrons. There were a few potions they brewed that were sensitive to the slightest touch of human body fluids, including saliva. Draco assigned them to teach his students to be more careful about what, exactly, they added to their brewing.

"That's all the ingredients I have, yes," Draco said. "If you want to come back in a week, then I can show you the newly-arrived orders." He faced Potter with insolent slowness, letting the scales collapse back down with a sharp _ting_. It was the only sound in the quiet, aching shop.

Potter showed his teeth and shook his head. His arrogance was back full-force, blazing in his eyes, and Draco restrained the motion he would like to make in answer to it. This was their plan, they had both agreed to it, and it would do no good if _he _was the one to make it mess up. He held Potter's eyes, and saw the moment when the flicker in them made them brighten. Potter was going along with the original plan after all, then. Good. Draco had no desire to try and adopt another in mid-flight.

"Fine, Malfoy," Potter said. "Be that way. If you're going to pretend you don't know what I'm talking about, be that way."

"I will," Draco said pleasantly, and gave Potter a smile that he knew would make the other man's teeth ache, whether or not they were playing this for real. "Seeing as I _don't _know what you're talking about."

Potter turned away with a sharp flourish and walked to the door. Over his shoulder, he added, "Someone will bring you down someday, Malfoy. Wish I could say that it would be me, but that doesn't look likely. But I'll wait, and watch, and the moment I see a toe set out of line, I'll be there."

"Given your history, I'm sure I will know when you come," Draco said.

Potter gave him a truly inspired deranged grin, and then shut the door of the shop silently behind him. That made the assistants wince, Draco noted as he glanced around again. Every single one of them had been waiting for Potter to slam the door.

Draco turned around and met the eyes of everyone looking at him, which was everyone except Patula, who looked nervously at her cauldron instead. That one would make a Potions master, Draco thought. She didn't let herself be disconcerted by outside events, and she cared about the potion first. The rest, he wasn't sure about.

"Potter might sniff around after this," he warned them gravely. "Give him nothing. Tell him that you don't know what he's talking about if he corners you and insists on special knowledge. And summon me."

Patula looked up then, after she had reached the part where she could safely cast a Stasis Charm on the potion. "What should we do if he approaches us outside the shop, Potions master?"

"Then you can send an owl to me after the conversation," Draco said. "Keep in mind that he has no reason to arrest you. It's me he wants." He cocked a smile at them that was much like the hand he had cocked on his hip. "And there's no reason for him to think he can have me, except sheer arrogance."

He could see them accepting it, deciding that Potter had a grudge against him that no amount of findings in a clean shop would help. They nodded, and Draco nodded back and went up to his flat to begin brewing the potion that would give them access to Schroeder's thoughts. He would need more ingredients first, of course, including some that wouldn't arrive until next week in the shipment he had mentioned to Potter.

It remained up to Potter to play _his _part, by continuing the Auror investigation with Weasley and appearing at their prearranged discreet meetings.

_And if he thinks that I'll make his precious antidote the priority when I have this potion to brew instead, _Draco thought as he looked at the vial of crushed unicorn horn in front of him and estimated its purity, _then he'll simply have to learn better._

* * *

"No progress yet? I expected better of you."

Harry didn't bother looking up, although he could feel Ron blowing up a puff-fish without even looking at him. But what was the point of responding? Grinder was always like this, a pestilential failure who had never attained to Auror status despite being in the training program for five years. They had finally given him an ambiguous position whose official title was Liaison to the Muggle Community, and whose unofficial one was Royal Berk.

"After all," Grinder continued, sliding into the room, "you've had this case for several _days _now." His voice stabbed and dripped concern, all at the same time. "Has the talented pair of Weasley and Potter found itself outmatched this time? Are these criminals too much for them?"

"You should write copy for the _Prophet_," Harry murmured, without looking up from the missing child reports in front of him. "I hear that Rita Skeeter's looking for an apprentice."

"Fuck you, Potter!"

Grinder would have lunged at him, but there were wards on the door to the office that Harry had specifically designed with him in mind. When he hit them, he stiffened for a long, agonizing moment, his tongue sticking out of his mouth with the shock of several lightning bolts through his body. Harry nodded to him and then pushed the report he had finished out of the way so he could look at the one beneath.

Ron sat down behind his desk, too, and paid studious attention to the pile of parchment in front of him. Harry didn't have to look up to know that his shoulders were shaking with the effort of holding back the laughter.

Grinder recovered at last, and Harry met his eyes because someone had to, and he didn't want Ron to always have that burden. "You can't do that," Grinder whispered. "It's a violation of Ministry protocol to have wards like that on your office."

"Is it?" Harry gave him a gentle smile, with more than a hint of tooth involved. "Somehow, I missed that memo. And I'm sure it was a bright and shiny one, too." He paused, waited until Grinder started to build up another head of steam, and then added, "The memo that told us we couldn't have wards on the door that would only activate when someone wanted to kill us."

A frozen moment, rather like the one when the wards had shocked Grinder, and then he uttered a loud, fake laugh and stepped away, running strands of his thin blond hair between his fingers. He looked like Malfoy would with thirty more pounds of weight and thirty less of aristocratic pretension, Harry thought. "What are you talking about, Potter? I don't want to _kill_ you. I was just angry at you, that's all."

Harry held his eyes and waited until Grinder flinched and looked away. Then he said quietly, "The wards measure the excess of someone's emotion. They can tell what you're feeling in the moment you feel it. At the moment you lunged, you felt strongly enough about me to kill me."

Once again, Grinder tried to splutter some denial, but Harry turned his head away and investigated a claim that a young witch had gone missing on the bank of the Thames two months ago. There was another report saying she had come back home a day later, and then a third from her parents stating there was something wrong, that their daughter had nightmares and an unexpected drain in her magic levels. From what Harry could tell, the Ministry had done nothing further with the case.

Of course, why would they, when that girl had come back home, as so many of the victims they tried to find didn't? Harry marked it for further consideration anyway and set it aside. He was starting to develop a pattern from reading numerous complaints from parents whose children had been returned to them.

"I'm sorry, Potter," Grinder said at last, trying for dignity and falling short in the same way a Flobberworm would have. "I didn't realize I hated you so much."

Harry looked up and nodded. His mouth was stretched in a wide gape, so anyone walking behind Grinder and glancing into the office would see it as a smile. It was the look in his eyes that made Grinder scramble away from him, his own mouth open and a shout starting to life in his throat. "Thanks, Rupert. That reassures me."

One more pause, Grinder opening his mouth as though to protest, and then he turned away and shuffled out without a sound. Harry watched him go, his hand resting on his wand.

"Mate, look at this."

Harry shook off the mood and turned to the file Ron was holding out to him. He was glad to have something to think about that wasn't that arrogant trainee, and from the way Ron stepped back from him, he was glad that Harry had something else to think about, too.

Harry sighed and took the report. He really didn't mean to frighten his friends this way, and he would hate for Ron to be permanently afraid of him. But what else could he do? He had got himself into this, the use of Dark Arts and the identification with the dead. He hated the way it affected his friends, but it let him catch criminals and get justice for their victims. Ron would also hate it if Harry suddenly stopped concentrating on his job.

Harry scanned the report in front of him, and then paused when he got to the phrase that Ron had underlined. "Eyes removed," he read aloud, and glanced up at Ron. "Does it say in another part that the face was scraped off?"

"Well—no." Ron sighed. "But that's the closest I've come to the face being scraped off. And you _know _that that girl wasn't their first victim. Why couldn't they have taken someone else and then done something different to them each time?"

"Because I think all of the children they've taken are Muggles," Harry said quietly, his mind still full of those hateful voices that sounded in the girl's last memories. "They wouldn't have a reason to take wizarding children."

"We only have Campion's confession for proof of that, and this one body." Ron leaned on his own desk and cocked his eyebrows at Harry. Harry smiled back, glad that he at least hadn't frightened his friends out of _arguing _with him. "They're wizards. What would they want with Muggle children? Children of people they know would make the better targets for blackmail or ransom."

"Of course they would," Harry said. "Assuming they want such things. But then, the parents would have reported ransom demands, and the children are less likely to turn up dead. The minute you murder someone's child, you lose every hold you had over them, and then some."

"Oh, yeah." Ron's ears blushed before the rest of his face did. That had been true when they were at Hogwarts, and it still was. Harry focused his mind on that. _See, Malfoy? I'm closer to the living than you think I am. _"But—well, we _are _looking at children that were murdered. Make the politics murky enough, and the parents might not report the deaths or want anyone to find out what they went through to get their kids back. Some of those old pure-blood families take pride to a ridiculous extent," he added, with the nodding wisdom of someone who seemed to forget that _he _was pure-blood half the time.

"Maybe," Harry said. He'd put it aside as an explanation for now, although he wasn't convinced. He picked up the marked report and turned it around. "What do you think of this?"

Ron read the report and frowned. "Mate, this one is still alive."

"Yes, but drained of some magic," Harry said. "Unusual if she was only defending herself or using magic to relieve some of her fear when she was gone." Those were well-known side effects of accidental magic in lost children. "But perhaps not unusual if someone was taking it from her."

Ron's mouth tightened again, in a deeper frown. "Mate. I don't think anyone's ever found out a way to take magic that lasts."

Harry shook his head. "I know." There were spells that could use an opponent's strength against him, and others that could duplicate a rare magical gift—such as the bond to a phoenix, although not Parseltongue—and still others that _mimicked _a spell to drain magic. In the end, though, the power still belonged to the one it was taken from, and was likely to leave the wizard who tried to take it even more drained and weak. You'd require a full Dark magical ritual to permanently acquire another wizard's power, and that would mean the death of the victim in an unmistakable manner. None that Harry had ever heard of required scraping someone's face off.

And there remained the problem that the girl who had died _had _no magic, and the one that had it returned to her parents alive.

"I'd like to talk to these parents anyway," Harry said, and tapped the report with his quill. "See what other effects they noticed, and whether their daughter ever gained back the power they thought she'd lost or not."

Ron grimaced, but nodded. "We have no other leads right now."

"Not at the moment," Harry said, and took his hand off his wand with an effort. When had it become habit to touch it, so much that he no longer noticed when his fingers went to it? He wondered if he could design a spell that would warn him when his elbow bent in that particular way. "There are some I could cast that would—"

"Mate."

Ron didn't sound like that often, and the way he reached out as if he would grip Harry's shoulder and drag him around to the right way by force was irritating. Harry hunched his shoulders, nodded, and said, "Fine. No spells at all. The one I was going to suggest was Light, but I reckon that doesn't matter." He twisted fluidly to his feet.

"That isn't it," Ron said, with a dignity Harry had to admit did him credit. "That wasn't what I was going to suggest, either. I don't want you using spells that could be dangerous for you in any way. You put yourself in danger enough as it is."

"I quite agree."

Harry twisted around, to find Lucas Schroeder lounging in their doorway.

Seeing him reminded Harry of all the good reasons he had to hate Malfoy, which he had somehow managed to ignore when working together with the bloke. Malfoy had the same polished, more-than-casual grace that somehow suggested the air you breathed and the area you traversed belonged to him, and you should be grateful that he was allowing you to remain alive. Harry wanted to shake his head over that, but he could do that in front of Malfoy, who was his ally but otherwise didn't matter to him. Wizengamot members like Schroeder would note the gesture, figure out what it meant, remember it, and use it against you twenty years from now. Or your children, although so far Harry had never found a woman he wanted to have children with.

Schroeder stood taller than Harry did, with grey eyes colder and clearer than Malfoy's and black hair with a single grey streak down the middle, like a ripple of silvery moonlight in dark water. He smiled at Harry and said, "Auror Potter, would you come with me for a moment? I have to congratulate you on your arrest of my nephew. He has been causing me a bit of distress lately, and I have been worried that nothing would stop his career before he stumbled into a serious crime. There is more information I have to impart to you, and," his eyes flickered minutely to Ron, "you alone."

Of course it was part of a game, all part of the dance. Harry knew that. The question was figuring out the music.

And of course he glanced apologetically over at Ron, and of course Ron waved to him to leave as though he was used to handling this by himself, and settled back with a handful of papers. They had to play Schroeder's game.

For now.

But Harry, as he smiled pleasantly and followed Schroeder out of the office, gossiping good-naturedly about Celestina Warbeck's latest scandal all the way, was already thinking of ways to change the rules.


	11. In Pain

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Eleven—In Pain_

"What did you want to talk about, Sir Schroeder?"

Schroeder winced a bit, but showed no other sign of how much the Muggle title irritated him as he closed his office door behind Harry. Harry watched his back with a faint smile that concealed the much greater emotions swirling behind his mask. He could have used the proper title for a male Wizengamot official, which was "Member," but rumors had circulated lately that some of them thought _that_ title had unfortunate implications. Well, so be it. Harry would be unfortunate in other directions, while all glittering, shining politeness on the surface. That had fooled most of the Ministry so far, because they couldn't believe the notoriously honest Harry Potter could do such things.

Being the notoriously honest Harry Potter had been good for a lot of things. Most of the time, Harry had to admit, he liked himself.

_Except when you have restrictions on you because of a stupid schoolboy grudge._

It would do no good to think of the potion that Malfoy had used on him and the fact he couldn't counteract it, though, so Harry simply inclined his head to Schroeder and murmured, "My apologies if the title was unfavorable."

Schroeder glanced at him once, and then nodded. "Yes. You arrested my nephew because of an unfortunate misunderstanding. The _crime _he confessed to involved delusions of grandeur because of a potion that some of his associates fed him."

Harry let his smile become tinged with ruefulness. "Undesirable associates?"

"You hit on the very word I would have used to describe them, had you not been so obliging as to procure it for me." Schroeder's expression changed, too. Harry was reminded of a prowling lion.

"That's good to hear," Harry said calmly. "I would have hated to hear anyone was involved with kidnapping Muggle children."

Schroeder tilted his head and blinked in a good parody of surprise. "That's what he told you?"

"He used different words," Harry said. "But that was the implication, yes."

He watched as the bait trailed on the dark water inside Schroeder's mind, which probably gleamed with less light than his eyes did. He had thrown out the insinuation—well, the truth—on purpose. For one thing, Schroeder would learn the truth himself if he talked to Campion, and for another, he would learn quickly that way that Ron knew it, as well, so it was of no use trying to silence only Harry. For a third, Harry didn't like the way Schroeder—and perhaps Moonstone—had proceeded so far, moving with speed and in secrecy to arrest Malfoy even though they had no proof he knew anything about Campion's confession or had anything to do with his arrest.

Harry distrusted enemies that hid in the shadows. It gave him an irresistible impulse to flush them out and make them run.

Schroeder considered him in silence for a time, and then nodded, as though Harry had spoken to him on some level that had nothing to do with the voice. "Very well, Auror Potter. I had hoped—well. I had hoped my nephew would do better the first time he met his future colleagues."

Harry nodded with that same faint smile fixed on his face. "I wasn't aware he would join the Auror program, sir."

Schroeder tensed, as though thinking his name would follow the title, and then relaxed when it didn't. "Oh, in a few years," he said. "When he's had a chance to think about himself and what he really wants out of life."

"I thought he wanted a Potions mastery," Harry said, with the air of someone making small talk.

Schroeder shook his head. "I put him there because I had nowhere else to put him, in truth," he said, and leaned back in his chair. "I thought the discipline would be good for him, as well as the experience brewing, which every wizard should have." He paused long enough to allow the words to hang in the air, then added, "Excuse me, Auror Potter. I meant no offense."

Harry leveled another smile at him. It wasn't as though his lack of Potions talent was a _secret_, but he found it beyond interesting that Schroeder had chosen to bring it up now. "Of course not, sir," he said, slick as slick, sweet as sweet. "But it's also good to know where our talents lie, and I'm afraid, after observing him, that Campion's talents don't lie in Auror work."

"You have a biased, and, ah, _partial _view of him," Schroeder said, and gave him one of those magnificent nods Harry had seen him use more than once to indicate that a whole case should simply be dismissed or dropped because he personally knew the offender. The infuriating thing was how often it worked. Harry shifted his weight so he could bring his wand up more easily. "Permit me to say. I think he will make a good Auror once he gets these youthful kinks worked out."

"Such as dosing himself on illegal potions?" Harry asked quietly. "By the laws, sir, he should be arrested for that as well."

"He didn't mean any harm," Schroeder said, and waved one hand as though batting away smoke. "And I should say that the ordeal he went through has more than ensured he won't do something so stupid again."

Harry nodded. If Schroeder wanted to play it that way, he would push it to the limits. "What potions, sir?"

"What?" Schroeder twisted his head at him like a curious goat. Then Harry shook the comparison away. It dragged goats down to a level he didn't mean to associate them with.

"Which potions was he on?" Harry repeated patiently. "I arrested him in the middle of the day. It seems that few illegal potions would take that long to fade from his blood and breath, let alone still control his actions."

Schroeder let out a sigh that continued much longer than necessary. "His _delusions about Muggle children _were part of the potion," he said patiently. "By the time that you arrested him, the effects, of course, had faded, but his convictions of what he had seen and heard had not."

Harry nodded. "Of course," he said. "I understand now. And a few crimes in the last few years become more comprehensible."

Schroeder snorted. "I assure you, Campion was not behind all of them." He had a sapphire ring lying on his desk, and he picked up a jeweler's glass as if to examine it. Harry glanced at it, and away. He had seen no trace of the glittering flaws that always marked a sapphire if someone attempted to introduce Dark magic into it. That meant Schroeder couldn't intend to use it as a weapon, unless he wanted to throw it at Harry's head or ask him politely to wait the ten hours it would take to brew a battle potion using crushed sapphire as the base.

"I meant," Harry said gently, "that the names of the potions would be useful. Who knows how many other stories we would uncover as delusions?"

Schroeder glanced at him, and then put down the jeweler's glass and pushed it and the ring away. "Shall we get to the point, Potter?" he asked. "I thought the direct approach would work, but the moment we reached my office, I slid back into my old ways. Careless of me. This is the message I wish to give you: you'll leave Campion alone, or I'll know why not."

"Will I?" Harry whispered. He could feel a tingling excitement rising rapidly along his breastbone. His chest shook with its breaths. Spells danced through his mind, and he had to dismiss them because they were Dark Arts, but he doubted Malfoy's potion forbade spells exactly on the thin edge. He lifted his wand a fraction. "That almost sounded like a threat, Sir Schroeder."

"You might as well not try to irritate me," Schroeder said with iron patience. "I will respond with appropriate force."

"Will you?" Harry danced a step forwards. He knew Schroeder's desk might have traps embedded in it, that there was a reason Schroeder was keeping it between them, but that only made him all the more eager to close, to engage. They could not be faster than he was. They could not be more dangerous. He was panting, and his chest ached, and his leg muscles twitched. He wanted to be _doing _something. He could feign that he was good at political meetings when he had to, but at bottom, he was something different, a creature of action, made to fight. His hands ached with the pressure he was putting on his wand, but it didn't matter. His mouth dripped with saliva that he kept behind his teeth.

Schroeder didn't move, instead watching him with an inflexible expression on his face. Harry wondered why, wondered what secrets he had, and then almost smiled to himself. It wouldn't really _matter _what secrets he had, once Harry got to work on him. He would have to confess them, or suffer unbearable pain.

"Last chance," Harry said quietly. "You tell me why you want Campion left alone when you think that he's so innocent. I shouldn't have to leave him alone, should I, if he never does anything wrong? Or you tell me what the potions were that he supposedly swallowed and that caused the delusions."

"I have done nothing to you, Mr. Potter," Schroeder said. He kept his hands on the desk in front of him, not reaching for his wand. Harry wondered why, and then remembered the booby traps he probably had in his desk. Right, but they wouldn't be quick enough to protect him if Harry decided to strike. Did he realize that? "What right do you have to question me like this ,to threaten me?"

"You're interfering in the execution of my duty," Harry said. "And depriving me of my rightful title as Auror, to boot."

"Of course," Schroeder said, and his mouth twisted. "A heinous crime, nothing like the ones you have committed against Campion by arresting him for no reason and doubting my word about what he had been up to."

That was it. Harry felt the words crack past a barrier in him that he hadn't known existed, and he went forwards gladly. His wand jabbed into Schroeder's throat and forced his head backwards. Schroeder let it happen, his eyes on Harry so full of contempt that they looked like polished stone. Harry shook his head and laughed. The sound had all the shakiness his body didn't; he was holding his wand absolutely steady for a reason.

"You fool," Harry whispered. "You should have realized who you were dealing with. I'm not someone you can bribe and force to ignore the terrible things you do."

"What evidence do you have that I was involved in something terrible?" Schroeder still stared at him with the boredom of someone who had to go through an interview for a position they knew wasn't important. "Your own suspicions. Nothing else. Mr. Potter, you should let me go, or it will end badly for you."

Harry sank his wand deeper instead. He could feel the desire to strike panting in him, in the darkness, like a beast. He thought he'd felt that at least since Malfoy dosed him with that potion. He was restricted in a way he usually never was, confined, and that made the beast savage. If Malfoy had trusted him to act on his own, then there would be no problem, and Schroeder would have long since yielded the truth, and Campion would be safely behind bars, and there would be no problem with the children still being kidnapped and killed and having their _faces scraped off, _and—

He became aware that he was panting aloud instead of only in his head at the same moment someone knocked on the door.

Harry turned his head, and Schroeder _moved_. His hand clamped down over Harry's wand and he called out, "Come in!"

Two Aurors surged through the door. Wilding and Kinzie, the Aurors who had been holding Malfoy when Harry enchanted Wilding into letting him go, and with their eyes fixed on Harry as if they knew what he had done, as if—

As if they had seen him in the middle of a Wizengamot member's office with his wand to that Wizengamot member's throat.

His own stupidity overwhelmed Harry then, and he didn't try to fight as they took his wand from him and yelled into his face that he was under arrest and chained his wrists in front of him and marched him towards the door. He was disgusted. Of course that was the reason Schroeder had brought him back here, and it wasn't to have privacy to discuss his nephew's crimes at all. He ought to know he never could have talked Harry out of punishing Campion based on his reputation.

Instead, Schroeder had lured him into a trap where he could get Harry arrested and held for reasons that had nothing to do with Harry interfering in Schroeder's own illegal activities.

He didn't have to hold him for long, although he could if he wanted to. He just had to hold him for long _enough_.

And Harry's temper and desire to punish criminals, the traits that made him a good Auror and a danger to good Aurors at the same time—as Ron had told him more than once—had ensured he fell right into that trap.

He shouldn't have done that. They would have to do something different now, and the Pensieve memories of the incident—because of course that was why Schroeder hadn't struggled, apart from wanting to make sure that Wilding and Kinzie would intervene before Harry could tug his wand away—would prove him guilty. Ron and Malfoy would have to do their investigating without him, since he was unlikely to see the inside of more than a prison cell for the next month.

Harry closed his eyes and let himself be dragged. There were a few ways he could get messages out if he needed to, but he doubted he needed to. Ron would find out what had happened soon enough, since someone like Grinder would delight in telling him, and then Ron would tell Malfoy.

_I'm sorry, mate. I fucked up._

* * *

Draco dropped the last crumbled bit of essence of rose into the potion and leaned back, sighing and shaking his head. He understood why the potion required such delicate and careful brewing, but it was hard on him. His back muscles were cramped from leaning over the cauldron, and his hand cramped with writing. He stretched and writhed his fingers in and out, cursing softly under his breath.

Someone knocked on the door of his flat.

Draco turned his head and stared in silence. It was the door that opened at the bottom of his stairs and onto the street, the door he had brought Potter in by when the git came to visit him the first time, not the door that led from his shop. That was the one _most _people knew about. He rose, frowning, and made his way towards it.

Of course, he tested his wards before he opened the door. Stupid to have enemies and let himself be caught by one of them because he hadn't been cautious enough. The ward showed him an image of the door at the bottom of the steps, rather like the spell that showed him the interior of the "private" room in his shop.

A flash of red hair, freckles, desperation. _Weasley_. Draco had to believe it was him, since there would be few people with taste bad enough to Polyjuice themselves into Potter's best friend. He set about unlocking the door even as he made mental notes to himself about what could have caused Potter to send Weasley instead of sending an owl or coming himself. Perhaps he was too disgusted about the potion for even that level of contact with Draco.

"They've arrested Harry," Weasley said, the instant he opened the door.

Draco took a moment to close his eyes and shake his head. "Not for use of Dark Arts, surely?" he asked, as he shut the door behind him and motioned Weasley up the stairs. Weasley took them two at a time and then stood there with folded arms until Draco could come up and open the door that led into his flat proper. At least he was smart enough to know he shouldn't trust a door that was potentially warded, Draco thought.

"I don't know," Weasley said. "Grinder—that's someone you don't know, it doesn't matter—said he'd been arrested for drawing his wand on Schroeder."

"The idiot," Draco said precisely, enjoying the shape of the words in his mouth, like cut glass. "I told him not to go anywhere _near _Schroeder until I had the potion ready that would let us track his thoughts." He glanced at his cauldron. A whole day's work of testing ingredients and their purity wasted, then.

"Schroeder sought him out," Weasley said, and flung himself into a chair hard enough to make the room shake. Draco winced. Weasley stared straight ahead at the empty fireplace and didn't seem to notice. "He came and said he wanted to talk to him. I didn't want Harry to go, but Harry seemed confident that he could handle it."

"Potter always does," Draco said, and restrained the urge to put a hand over his face. _Potter. You idiot. Why can you not appreciate that, sometimes, the rules people make for you are for your protection, and not because someone specifically wants to ban you from doing what you think best?_

When he got his hands on him, then Draco would shake him until his teeth rattled. He thought of using another potion, but that would only make Potter more sullen. Draco needed him more clear-headed, so that they could think through the consequences of their actions together.

"What is your plan?" he asked Weasley abruptly, and stood to call in cups and butterbeer. He felt the need of mild alcohol, but drinking strongly before their inevitable quick action would be a stupid move.

"Plan?" Weasley accepted a cup and drank over half of it, then leaned back against the chair, shaking his head. "I don't know. I planned to come here and tell you, because I thought you should know, but that doesn't mean I know what to do next."

Draco saw him glance away as if to hide his grimace, and returned it with a thin smile. "We must remove Potter from the cells, of course," he said. "There is no point in delay now that Schroeder has forced the plan this far. He must have done it to hobble Potter, and thus your investigation."

Weasley dropped his cup. Draco _tsked_ and Vanished the shards, then paused to cast a more difficult cleaning charm on the splashed butterbeer. It had to be taken care of in just the right way, or it would remain as a sticky patch that could shed fumes, which would get into the air and mingle with the potions he tried to brew in the future.

"You can't—you can't mean it," Weasley whispered. "That would hobble our investigation even _further_. Malfoy, what you're proposing to do is _illegal_."

"It's not as though I'm suggesting we break him out of Azkaban," Draco said, glancing at the way Weasley's hands shook and wondering if he would be such a useful ally after all. "I had thought it was talking to Potter about the Dark Arts that you were afraid of, not everything else."

That made Weasley's face turn such a purple color Draco leaned back and smiled as he watched him. Weasley got it under control a moment later, and even managed a credible sneer. "That would be the end of Harry's career, and the end of anything we could do to keep him under control," he said. "You really think the Ministry would let him come back after that?"

"And you're so sure that this isn't the end of his career?" Draco asked, sipping from his cup so he could show Weasley how it was done. "That the Ministry will let him continue on after this, when they think, or will be persuaded to think, that he attacked a Wizengamot member? Careers are broken every day for less."

Weasley hesitated. "He's the Chosen One," he said at last. "They'll forgive him, eventually, if we give it time."

"We don't have time," Draco reminded him. "And he has as many enemies as friends, thanks to his title. He'll be in prison for years if they get their way. How many of them are going to seize on the excuse that Schroeder's given them and come forwards to testify that, oh yes, Mr. Potter, the former Auror, so _dangerous_, but they didn't want to say anything about it when he was doing things for the good of the wizarding world? And, well, yes, if they _must _they'll appear in front of the Wizengamot and mention it, but only if you think so, Member Schroeder. Well, if you're _sure_."

Weasley slumped in the chair and closed his eyes. "Fuck," he said at last.

Draco nodded. "I have potions that will let us create a solid simulacrum of Potter to put in the cell. I'm not talking about taking him out and leaving nothing in his place, of course. That would indeed create notice, the way you talked about, and we don't need that." He stood up and moved across the flat to the cupboards on the far wall, which held the more valuable potions he had ever brewed, the ones he would want to take with him in the case of a fire. He was already calculating how much it would cost him to replace them, and grimacing, but it would be worth it if the insult to him could be addressed.

"Wait, Malfoy."

Draco paused and glanced over his shoulder, even though most people could have said that without affecting his behavior in any way. Weasley had spoken with a certain tone in his voice that…commanded attention. No, he wasn't afraid of everything the way he was of Potter and the Dark Arts. "What?" he asked.

"I want to know why you're helping." Weasley's eyes glittered, and his fingers twitched as though he would make his wand appear between them at any moment. "It's not as though you really _need _to. The Wizengamot will probably leave you alone now."

"Are you willing to bet on that?" Draco asked softly. "Because I'm not."

Weasley shook his head. "But they might. And you could do something less time-consuming and expensive than rescuing Harry. But you want to do _that_. Why?"

"Because he's an ally," Draco said simply. "Because they could examine him and discover my potion, and trace it back to me because they know of only one competent Potions master whom he's visited lately. Because they arrested and insulted me."

Those were all the public reasons. Weasley didn't deserve the private ones, such as the way his stomach pulsed when Potter glared at him, or the Divination vision, or the debt he owed Potter for rescuing him from the clutches of the Aurors.

Weasley still frowned as he studied him. Draco sighed and banged the door of the cupboard back and forth. "Can I get on with choosing the right potion now, Weasley?" he snapped.

"What? Oh, yeah." Weasley blushed a little as he stood up, and then stood in the middle of the floor, his hands flailing about as if he thought he would break another cup if he moved too fast or far.

Draco took the proper combination of potions from the shelves, and smiled a little. They needed to dose someone with them for that person to become a simulacrum of Potter.

Luckily, Draco had the perfect candidate in mind.


	12. In the Blood

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twelve—In the Blood_

Harry was once again lying in the darkness and thinking, but his conclusions were rather different from the ones he had come to in the Dark Cells, the night the Ministry held him there.

For one thing, he had light this time. They kept a light on continually in the holding cell, in fact, a sparkling ball of radiance that floated up near the height of the ceiling and kept the small pallet he lay on under constant observation. It was a way for the Aurors to look in on him without actually entering the cell. Sometimes it dimmed so he could sleep—never at times that corresponded to night in the world outside, which Harry knew was deliberate—but it never went out.

He had better accommodations than he had in the Dark Cells, but he knew that was for the convenience of his jailers more than it was for him. A more traditional loo was easier to clean, and there were more wards here, subtler ones, ones that wouldn't simply react to the use of Dark Arts but to _any _magic. He had ink and parchment and a single, blunt quill that would only become sharp in reaction to parchment, not to the touch of anything else, on a table in the corner. He could write a confession if he liked.

Under certain circumstances, Harry might have tried. But he could only muster so much interest. He slipped in and out of thought again, dozing sometimes, and then opening his eyes and looking up at the light. He wondered what the guards saw in his face.

He doubted he would ever know.

_I fucked up._

Harry sighed. He had acknowledged that before, but usually only when Ron flung an angry challenge at him and _demanded _that he acknowledge it. Even then, it was easy to raise a pleading hand, smile and nod while Ron glared at him, and go away secretly convinced he was in the right.

_I even have to be grateful for that bloody potion, since it prevented me from using Dark Arts on Schroeder._

So, the answer was, could he be of any use to the investigation Ron would try and continue now? Harry rubbed his left wrist, which he'd shattered tackling a Dark wizard in a raid two years ago and which sometimes still ached now, with his right hand and frowned at the ball of light. Perhaps, if he was careful and they let him see Ron. But any conversation could be monitored, and he wasn't always good at subtlety.

_Suggest he bring Malfoy with him…_

But that wouldn't be good, either, when they'd gone to such lengths to convince even Malfoy's assistants that Harry and Malfoy despised each other now. Harry chewed his lip and kicked his leg against the side of the pallet, and as he did it, he was sure he felt the watching guards' attention sharpen through the ball of light.

_Well, fine, arseholes, stare. It won't do you any good as long as I don't do something _else _stupid and give you permission to come down on me._

All right. So a simple conversation with Ron and a simple conversation with Malfoy were both impossible. Was there anything else he could do?

Yes. Harry smiled a little. When an Auror was arrested—and he'd done his share of those kinds of arrests, he knew how it worked—he had to make arrangements for his files. What needed to stay with his partner, what needed to be handed on to other partner teams, and what needed to go to the Minister's or Head Auror's eyes only were the usual categories.

He could make sure that he placed the most important files in Ron's care, including the ones that told the stories of magical children coming back to their parents with low power levels. And he would put those first on the list. Ron wasn't stupid, although perhaps even less subtle than Harry. He would notice the order of the cases, build on their earlier conversation, and work out what to do with them.

Harry closed his eyes. He could feel the tension easing and collapsing out of his chest, his lungs working properly again and the blood flowing.

_All because you might have settled the disposition of the cases correctly?_

Harry rolled his shoulders up in what _he _would know for a shrug, though he had not a clue what his guards would make of it. And that wasn't the important part. The important part was what he made of it.

He was at peace. Whatever happened to him, there was at least the chance that Ron and Malfoy together could discover what had happened to those children, who had scraped their faces off, and whether the other children coming back with low levels of power had anything to do with it.

He wasn't the important one. He had made the mistake of thinking he was, that he was the only obstacle in Schroeder's way and the only Auror who could solve the case. But that wasn't it. That had never been it.

Harry showed his teeth to the light. The important thing was to keep _Schroeder _thinking it, too. If he kept his attention focused on Harry, even chained up, then he would ignore Ron, and perhaps Malfoy. Malfoy should be wary, since he'd already been arrested once before, but Harry was confident the bastard could do that.

Well. If his part was to keep them focused on him, it was time to act, then.

Harry stretched, then paused mid-stretch and blinked as though a disturbing thought had just occurred to him. He sat up on the pallet and pressed his fingers against his temples, bowing his head. He could almost feel bored eyes widening.

He stood up and crossed the room to the table with the ink, parchment, and quill. He'd begin a false confession, and the real, important list of files to be distributed, and blot the confession many times, and turn his back on it, and then come back and continue working as if obsessed.

He had to keep their eyes on him, so Ron and Malfoy stood more of a chance. Because, in the end, the really important people were the victims, not the Aurors, and he had forgotten that.

* * *

"You're sure you know what you're doing."

Weasley didn't make it a question, perhaps because he didn't want to hear the answer. That allowed Draco to return a faint smile and turn away, focusing on the man in front of them. They had entered the pub he knew their prey liked to frequent at this time of day, but disguised; anyone who looked at them would only see a pair of dusty, down-on-their-luck warlocks with tattered robes. The servers had been rude to them, which Draco remembered and would punish someday, but at least it meant their glamours were good, if their inherent quality didn't shine through.

Campion, seated at a table three away, took another gulp of Firewhisky and motioned the woman who had served him the first three mugs to bring another over.

"Yes, I do." Draco played with the potions vial in front of him, glamoured to look like another mug. It had been easy enough to acquire the scraps of Potter's hair and skin that he needed to finish it, since Weasley had access to his flat. "Free, the man's a nuisance. He might spread rumors about us or attempt to put my clients off. Locked up, he can't cause trouble. There's much to be said for locking someone up."

From the corner of his eye, he saw Weasley grimace. Draco had parodied it on purpose, since it was the kind of thing an Auror might say. Draco flashed him a private smile and then stood, the disguised vial firmly in his hand.

"I would ask you to wish me luck," he murmured over his shoulder, "because I will need it to be clumsy. Malfoys never are."

"Oh, blow it out your ear," Weasley muttered, but he drew his wand under the table and held it ready on his lap. Draco appreciated the silent show of support.

He crossed the room towards Campion, weaving enough that most of those who looked at him later would say he was drunk, but not so much he couldn't deny it if he had to. That was part of the point, of course. Confuse the witnesses, and the Aurors or anyone else who came to investigate this would have little to go on.

He had already uncorked the vial at their table, and now he turned to the side and tripped over Campion's foot—an easy task to accomplish, that, when Campion had so little grace—and the contents of the vial poured out in a steady stream towards Campion's mug.

"Oi!" Campion jerked up and tried to focus his bleary eyes in Draco's direction. "Howr'sh—what're you—"

"You stole my drink!" Draco screeched, taking a step back and glaring at Campion. Of course the liquid that had poured into the mug would look like Firewhisky, and there were already a few people laughing in anticipation.

Campion leaned back, looked him up and down, and then grinned. Draco had chosen a glamour of a thin, sallow face with broken teeth, missing teeth, and chipped teeth—the kind of face a man might have if he had bad health but also regularly got into fights he lost. The recently-broken nose in the glamour and the shaggy hair, hanging loose around a scar that was visible whenever he tilted his head, completed the picture.

"Seems to _me_," Campion said, and Draco knew he was concentrating hard to produce words that clear, "that if you pour—if you fall the whisky into my drink, it's drinkers', keepers." And he picked up the mug and swallowed.

Draco watched more closely than he usually watched humans, except Potter, to see if Campion detected any difference in the taste. It was one reason he had been glad to see Campion drinking Firewhisky; it was so strong that it would mingle with and drown the potential vileness of the potion effectively.

He swallowed convulsively several times, and then reached up and put a hand to his throat. Draco took a step back as if getting out of range, but balled his fists and scowled anyway.

Then Campion laughed and nodded at Draco. "I think you ought to t'ank me for'er favor," he muttered, his head bobbing. "They were serving you dragon piss."

That made the woman who had served Draco and Weasley turn around with a scowl, and several other people look up. Draco snorted disdainfully. "Often sneak out to the—the Keepers and drink—it, do you?" he hiccoughed, swaying on his feet.

Campion lunged at him, but mostly succeeded in bearing him to the floor. Draco went with it, and rolled with the punches, and made it seem as though Campion had succeeded in thoroughly chastising him without taking a blow except those he could deal with and incorporate into the glamour as much worse than they actually were.

He stepped back with an imaginary purple bruise spreading over his broken nose, and scowled at Campion, cradling his face. Campion laughed up at him, and then rolled away and got to his feet with a slow, ponderous motion that worried Draco more than anything had so far. Potter moved like a great cat, lithe and light. The simulacrum the potion would make Campion into had its limits, and changing Campion's gait to a reasonable mimicry of Potter's would probably be one of them.

"And let that be a lesson to you," Campion said, and sat down to take a long, intoxicating—in more ways than one—drink of his mingled Firewhisky.

Draco, snuffling, stumbled back to his table and fetched Weasley, and they scurried out the door as thought wanting distance between them and Campion, Weasley only tossing a handful of Knuts onto the table behind them when the woman who had served them called out a stern warning.

They walk-shuffled away as fast as they could, and when they rounded the corner that led into Diagon Alley away from the pub, Draco removed the glamours on their faces and cloaks. Weasley took a deep breath, as though being the man he had been disguised as choked him. Draco eyed him sideways in mild amusement, and said nothing.

"That—that was harder than I expected," Weasley said, huffing his breath out as though picking carefully through the words.

"Really? When you did nothing?" Draco asked idly, and kept his gaze fixed straight ahead, on the cobblestones in front of him. He knew the potion would work as it was destined to do. But it was the first time he had used it, and he couldn't help the Potions master's anxiety for a new creation hopping out into the world. Should he ever sire children, he imagined, he would feel much the same.

And then there was the question of how they would get into the holding cells, but Weasley had promised to handle that end of things. Draco had his own private plans in place, which he would not tell Weasley about unless they became necessary. He was not so much of a fool as to reveal his doubt in his ally. Of course, he was also not so much of a fool that he would not make backup plans.

"Bloody ha-ha," Weasley muttered, and scowled at his feet. "This is going to change everything, you know," he said.

"I believe we have discussed how it may not," Draco said mildly. "As far as anyone knows, you will prove your loyalty to the Ministry without a doubt. As far as anyone knows, Potter will remain in his cell, and I will occupy myself with blameless brewing."

"Someone's going to catch us," Weasley said, darting glances up and down as they turned into Chemic Alley.

"We need only wait an hour," Draco returned, because at least giving Weasley something else to worry about would change the subject.

That led Weasley to talk about how no one could be _that _certain of the consistency of potions and the time they would last, and how he'd never heard of a potion that had that precise a delay in its beginning, anyway. He quoted experimental potions theory Granger had probably told him. Draco checked his watch, and waited. As far as his assistants knew, he was entertaining Weasley's proposal for a particular potion with _extreme _skepticism, and so they had reason to linger talking in the street outside, since going into the shop would compromise Weasley's pure Auror principles.

Then Draco saw the hands of his watch reach the correct time, at the same moment as shouts erupted from the pub they had left.

"Ah, yes," Draco said, and turned around to check that the expression on Weasley's face had the proper fierceness. "Right on time."

* * *

Harry was halfway through his latest false confession—the one he thought might pass muster with Schroeder—when he felt his face begin to change. He paused and stared down at his hands as though he had been caught by surprise, while above him the guards reacted with shouts of alarm.

The wards didn't clang at him, Harry noticed at once, which meant this wasn't magic from the outside. A potion, it had to be. If he had somehow ingested the potion since he entered the cell, he had to give his enemies his admiration for cleverness. He had eaten nothing so far, which his time with the Dursleys rendered merely an inconvenience rather than a horror, and he would have recognized the taste of all the common potions that could be dissolved in water without a telltale color.

_Malfoy._

The clever, clever bastard. And since Harry had seen that particular pattern of ragged nails recently, he even knew who he was supposed to be.

By the time the guards came to open the door of the cell, he was ready.

"What happened?" asked the first Auror through the door, Kinzie, keeping well-back. He was staring at Harry with his mouth open, but he had his wand drawn, and the good sense to block Wilding, who kept trying to get into the cell behind him.

"I d-don't," said Harry, and bowed his head, and shivered. He knew perfectly well what had happened, but not how Malfoy had done it. His voice was Campion's. His clothes were the kind of wildly expensive robes that Campion seemed to favor, and could afford, as the nephew of a Wizengamot member. He raised his head and shook it, then balled his fists up. "I—I can't tell you what happened, because I don't remember it." He had no idea which story Malfoy would spin out of the two likely ones—that Harry Potter had escaped and assumed Campion's identity with a glamour, or that they had switched places in some sort of wandless, ward-bypassing Apparition—so claiming memory loss was the simplest tactic.

"Keep him in there."

The overseer of the holding cells, a tall, grey and greying woman named Hallana Longwatch, nodded to Harry and then blocked Kinzie and Wilding out of the cell with no more than a glare. "Your pardon, Mr. Fipps. But this is irregular, and we have to make sure that we don't make a mistake."

Harry chose to sit down and bury his head in his hands. His breath quickened with the adrenaline flooding through him, but that was all right. They could think he was on the verge of a panic attack or hyperventilating, if they wanted to.

Malfoy had done it. He had. And Harry's thoughts bounded and danced in his head, rejoicing in the new freedom, even as Longwatch spoke quietly with Kinzie and Wilding and sent a memo to Schroeder.

He was free now. He could join the investigation again. And this time, he wouldn't fuck it up, no matter the temptation. He could almost find it in him to be grateful to Malfoy for the potion, not because he liked it, or liked Malfoy, but because this meant that he couldn't fuck up specifically by using Dark Arts in any way.

Harry sat with his head in his hands, the way that poor, sweet little Campion would undoubtedly do, and waited to see what would happen during his rescue.

* * *

Weasley did it well, Draco had to admit. He came in through the door of the pub with his Auror robes streaming behind him, his eyes bright and his wand drawn, and then jerked to a stop and stared at the simulacrum of Potter standing where Campion had stood.

_I feared for nothing, _Draco told himself, looking over Weasley's shoulder. Of course a potion that so thoroughly changed the way the drinker looked could deal with something like Campion's clumsy gait. He had Potter's hands, and Potter's eyes, and Potter's messy black hair, and Potter's faded scar. Draco saw the way gazes all over the pub locked on that. They might decide that they didn't know Potter without his trademark glasses, but that scar gave him away.

Or gave Campion away. In truth, Draco was less concerned about the fool managing to upset the plan than he was about Potter, but he wished to watch the moment when he first realized who he had become.

It was worth it. Draco had never known eyes could go that wide, or hands could flail like that. Then Weasley shook his head and stepped forwards, pressing the wand gently into his flank.

"You know you're supposed to be locked up, Harry," he said quietly. It had been the front page story in the _Daily Prophet _that morning, one reason Draco had insisted that they wait until today to do it. "I don't know how you got out or what you did with Fipps, but they'll find out at the Department. Come along."

"This isn't me!" Campion wailed, and then looked around and seemed to realize he was the focus of every unsympathetic eye. "I mean—I'm not Potter! I'm Campion! This is some mistake! You need to fetch my uncle!"

Draco shook his head slightly. The voice was Potter's, and he could see by the way some of the people around the walls flinched and then pressed forwards that they were familiar with it.

"I wish I could believe you," Weasley said, his eyes perfectly shadowed and his voice perfectly sad. "I would rather believe that you're Fipps, the victim of a prank, than I would that my best mate broke out of a holding cell after he attacked Member Schroeder. But that's impossible to believe until we got someone to look at you more closely. Come along, now." He motioned with the wand.

Campion struck out wildly. Weasley hesitated nearly long enough for the punch to hit him, and Draco frowned. He would have to remember that Weasley was affected by Potter's appearance on a man he should have every reason to strike.

Luckily, Weasley's training took over after that. He struck hard, hard enough that Campion's head rocked back on his neck, but he did it in the ribs, where it would bruise and startle him more than it would injure. Then he cast the _Stupefy_, and Campion fell precisely into Weasley's waiting arms.

"Oh, Harry," Weasley whispered, just as Draco had told him to, and thus started a hundred rumors that this was the truth.

Draco stood out of the way so Weasley could carry Campion past him. Weasley's eyes met his as he passed, and Draco read the warning in them with dangerous ease. If he somehow managed to screw this up and not rescue Potter, Weasley would do far worse than hit him with a Stunner, as he had hit Campion.

Draco smiled back without pretense, but with a twist to the smile that made Weasley look away and spit on the ground. That, too, was real enough in its way. Weasley didn't think that this next part of the plan would work, that they would be able to get Potter out of his cell and switched with Campion. The Ministry would want to keep them both under observation, Weasley had argued, and if Schroeder came to talk with Potter while he still wore Campion's guise, Potter would give himself away.

Draco touched the pocket of his cloak and gave Weasley's back the kind of look that would start another set of rumors circulating. Someone might wonder what Draco Malfoy and Ron Weasley had been doing together that day, but they wouldn't think the association had continued. Those who had seen the touch would caution Weasley to watch out for poison in his tea, in fact.

Well. The pocket contained the solution, but not the kind of solution that would rid the world of Weasleys forever (which Draco was obliged to concede was a less desirable goal today than it would have seemed a month ago).

Weasley would just have to trust him. And leave the planning up to him, which he should have done in the first place.

_This _second potion had been brewed with Potter's blood, and that made all the difference.


	13. In Control

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Thirteen—In Control_

"You must know it grieves me to see you here, Campion."

Schroeder's voice was gentle, and had an undertone of steel. Harry bowed his head in penance, or what he thought Campion might think it looked like. Campion had struck him as arrogant enough not to be very familiar with the gesture.

"But it puzzles me more." Schroeder had taken a stool, gently rebuffing the guards' attempts to bring him something more suitable. Harry watched it and understood, silently. This was the kind of "humble" gesture he would use to make it look as though he understood the plight of the common wizard. It wouldn't have fooled anyone with a working brain, but Harry knew not as many of his fellow Aurors had those as was commonly believed. "Why in the world did this happen? Is this a prank?"

Harry ducked his head and whinged. At least his voice was Campion's, and he'd had the chance to hear plenty of his whinging during Ron's interrogation of the little git, so he knew how to do this convincingly. "I told you, I don't _remember_." That still seemed safest. Ron and Malfoy would presumably be along to tell him what he ought to do at some point, but they hadn't come in yet. And he was determined not to fuck up again.

"And I told you, that's not an answer." Schroeder didn't move, his ankles dangling in front of him and still lightly crossed, but his voice had an undertone, a vibration, that didn't promise well for Campion. "What were you doing immediately before you arrived here?"

"I," said Harry, and then turned his head away and stared at the far wall. No, there was something he could do after all, and it might pollute the story Campion would try and tell his uncle when he arrived. "You'll be angry at me for it."

"When am I ever angry at you, Campion, except for when you deserve it?"

That didn't sound promising, but at least the undertone in his voice had changed. Harry swallowed and stared down at his hands again. Smooth hands, he noticed, without the calluses that Harry had expected to have by the time he was nineteen, after all those years of gripping either a broom or a wand.

He controlled his disgust, because being disgusted at himself—or the form he wore now—was not productive to his plans, and what was productive to his plans had to be most important. "I met with," and he took a breath as though to steady the air in his lungs more than to brace himself for what he wanted to say to his uncle, "Arianna Turnlong."

There was such silence in the room that Harry could hear his heartbeat. He sneaked a look at Schroeder's face and then ducked his head again.

"I see," Schroeder said mildly. "How long have you seen this—young woman?" The pause was perfect, Harry had to admit. Schroeder used his voice as the tool of his politics, making speeches and consulting in private conversations, and he knew how to weight his words to make it seem as if he had hesitated a long time before choosing a polite epithet.

"For," Harry said, and pause and breathe and gulp and swallow, "a while."

"And you never thought to inform me?" Schroeder leaned back on his stool, seeming to remind himself at the last moment that it _was_a stool, and that tripping headlong onto the floor behind him was not his goal. "You know of my political rivalry with Madam Turnlong, Campion. Her niece has many of the same…opinions that she does. Meeting with her because you are attracted to her is beyond foolish."

"I'm _not _just attracted to her!" Harry jerked his head up and did his best to remember the square way Campion had held his body when confronting Ron and Harry with what he thought was evidence of their mistreatment. "You don't understand!"

"Ah, yes, the cry of youth everywhere," Schroeder said, and his lip curled. "Campion, you know the political ambitions I have, how I gave up on having sons of my own partially so I would be able to provide better for my nephew—"

That had the dusty sound of a speech often taken out of a cupboard and displayed, and Harry struck back against it with a temper that he was sure Campion had, even if he had to hide it from his benefactor. "I can do things on my own! I don't need you! And Arianna proved it to me!"

He surged to his feet, and then, as Schroeder held the silence and looked up at him with no change of expression, let his shoulders sag. He sank back onto his own stool and stared at his balled-up fists in front of him as Schroeder began to speak.

"You know better than that. You know what you are, and who you are, and why you are. You will have everything I do someday, the political power and the allies and the luxuries, but only if you do as you're told. You're very young, younger in mind than you are in years of the body. You cannot tell me what I do and do not understand. What I _know_ is that when I was your age, I worked much harder than you do now, and was grateful for the opportunities that fate handed me…"

_And __then __there__ are __times__ I__'__m__ grateful__ that__ chance __left __me __with__ no __family __of __my__ own, _Harry thought, struggling to hide his revulsion.

Schroeder went on with the explanation so long that Harry wanted to scream, and then Longwatch stepped into the room and coughed gently. "Member Schroeder? Auror Weasley has brought Potter in."

It was interesting to watch Schroeder gather himself, his eyes filming cold, his chin lifting and his hands clenching in front of him as though he wanted to take a chain in them and wrap it around Harry's throat. "Has he?" he said, and all around him Harry imagined stone freezing to ice and Aurors taking prudent steps back—not that any of them had remained in the cell when Schroeder ordered them out. Wizengamot membership had its privileges and its perks. "Then tell him to come here."

Ron came in, and Harry slumped over on his stool and peeked at them sullenly from beneath Campion's tangled hair. He could only hope Ron wouldn't give them away, since Ron sometimes had trouble controlling his emotions when Harry was in danger. But Ron stared straight ahead at the far wall, and only shook Campion now and then when he whined too loudly in protest.

_Remarkable,_Harry thought, in fascination he took care not to show. Malfoy's potion had done its work well. Campion had Harry's eyes and scar—which had always been the hardest thing to feign when someone else tried to glamour themselves up as Harry in the past—and his scruffy hair and his Auror robes. Harry swallowed a giggle when he thought of how people must have reacted to his appearance, wherever he had been.

Then Ron marched Campion over so they stood halfway between Schroeder's stool and Harry's, and Harry smelled the Firewhisky on him. Even better. Campion would protest, of course, but he didn't have the mental clarity he needed to make his lies absolutely plausible to Schroeder.

And if Harry and Ron spun it right, he would never have the chance again, since they could disgust Schroeder enough to make him leave.

"So this is Potter." Schroeder turned around and nodded as though he was appreciating a new wine that someone had set before him. "What was he doing when you caught him, Auror Weasley?"

Ron snapped to attention and used a salute that Harry knew for a fact he had never used when they were merely reporting to the Head Auror. Someone who knew him well would sense the sarcasm inherent in every movement, but there was no reason to suspect Schroeder knew him well. "Sir! He was in a pub, drunk on Firewhisky." He let his eyes linger on Harry for a moment in no friendly way, then turned back to the disguised Campion with a sigh and a shake of his head. "People started screaming when he landed there among them."

"When his appearance changed, you mean," Schroeder said, and he looked at his nephew, too, with a face like steel. "It is plain that he has been impersonating my nephew for some time. He would not be drunk if he had merely appeared there."

Harry held his breath. Was Schroeder going to convince _himself_? Did they dare hope?

It was plain that Ron didn't intend to leave the convincing up to chance, though. He licked his lips and said, "Well, sir, a glamour—I mean, of course he could have kept the glamour up for a time, but there were people who said that they'd seen him acting exactly like Campion Fipps in the last few days—"

He paused when Schroeder rose to his feet. "And are you saying that my nephew regularly behaves like a common drunk, Auror Weasley?" he asked. Harry thought even George, who made a career of not caring what people thought, would hesitate at the air Schroeder was managing to project around him.

"Not what I meant!" Ron stammered, and he'd got his ears to turn red, too. Harry felt a fierce glow of pride as he watched. Ron was a much better Auror than he sometimes let people think, and Hermione scolded him about hiding his potential, but he didn't much listen to her. "I meant that, well, people said they'd seen him around in different places. He couldn't have acted for that long, could he have? It couldn't be a long-lasting impersonation?" He let his voice trail off in the face of the glance Schroeder gave him. That glance was steady, and that was about its only virtue, Harry thought.

"I understand your desire to protect your partner," Schroeder said, and one could have thought he was talking about something praiseworthy—or something he _thought_ was praiseworthy—from the way his voice trailed gently off. Someone who thought that wouldn't have been Ron. He tensed like a kitten caught clawing up a piece of new furniture and stared at Schroeder.

"But it cannot stand," Schroeder said. "The impersonation must have continued for some time, because getting drunk in public, at this hour of the day, is _not_ something my nephew would do. And Auror Potter has more skills at acting than you give him credit for." A short, flickering look came back at Harry.

Harry held his breath, and said nothing. This was working. Schroeder wouldn't let on to Ron—or at least he thought so—about how rattled and disgusted he really was. He couldn't do so, because he had to protect his nephew's reputation. What really had to happen was that he got Ron away and then interrogated Harry and Campion alone.

That was the part Harry feared. He could keep up the mask better than Campion could as long as Campion was drunk, and he had spun a story that would give Schroeder pause, because Madam Turnlong, the devastating Arianna's aunt, was his worst enemy on the Wizengamot. But in the end, he would, of course, try his best to find the truth, and he had access to Veritaserum if he wanted it.

_I__ hope __you __have __something __planned __for __this, __Malfoy, _Harry thought, and tried not to feel how much the thought was like a prayer.

* * *

Draco leaned back against the wall in his flat with a smile. Weasley hadn't known why Draco wanted to attach a small mirror to the sleeve of his Auror robe that morning, but then, Weasley, while not an idiot, didn't have much expertise in the branches of magic that Draco intended to exploit.

Draco let his fingers rub against the mirror he carried, smaller and rounder than the one Weasley had but otherwise its twin, and breathed across it. His breath created a mist that cleared in seconds, and left him a clear view of Potter's cell. He had told Weasley to keep his wand drawn at all times, because a wand stuffed in the sleeve would obscure Draco's view.

He had no trouble doing that, it seemed. Of course, Draco should have known that he wouldn't. Potter—the real Potter, disguised as Campion—sat on a stool. Schroeder stood in front of him, mostly obscuring him, so Draco wouldn't have been sure about who was back there if _he_ was an idiot. Weasley was present mostly as flashes of sleeve from the corner of the mirror and flashes of red hair even further away from the sides, and the disguised Potter occupied the whole of Draco's vision.

Schroeder was making points and asking questions that would lead to the truth if he made them and asked them long enough. Draco wouldn't let that happen, either. He dug his teeth into the cork of the vial he held and spat it out.

He had worked more experiments than anyone he knew with mirror potions, using a glass to influence what happened from a distance in a reflection. There was no reason that it should not work as usual with a potion containing Potter's blood.

Well. Except there was one difference he was hoping _would_ appear, one special difference all of this depended on.

He poured the potion over the surface of the mirror, drop by drop, watching the way they shimmered before the mirror absorbed them. He could feel his heart in his ears, and his breath in his lungs, and every drop of his own blood moving through his body. This was the way it always was, all the time, when he used his potions. His own creations, at least, not the routine love philters that he brewed for more clients than he cared to count.

This was life. This was living.

The surface of his mirror smoked for a few minutes, and then cleared. The potion was gone. Draco was glad that he hadn't told Weasley the time limitation on this one, because it was more uncertain than the potion Campion had swallowed. He leaned back in his chair and waited.

Still his heartbeat and his breath and his body filled the present, and he gloried in it. He could feel the tingle of power around him. He had made the potion well, and that was part of it, but he knew that Potter's blood sang with the raw version of the magic he used through his wand on a daily basis, and that was the other part.

_The __fool. __He __could __do __so __much__ if __he__ was __in __control, __instead__ of__ flailing __around__ in __the __midst __of __chaos. __I __will__ have __to__ show__ him__ that, __show __him__ that __having __power __is __no__ good __if __one __does__ not __have __someone __to __guide __it._

* * *

Harry looked up as Schroeder sounded like he was nearing the end of his speech about how his nephew was the innocent victim in this situation, and how he would thank Ron not to spread the news. They could not keep the news of Potter escaping from spreading, of course, and he understood how hard that was for Ron when Potter was his partner, but…

There was something happening.

A wind, Harry thought, his nostrils quivering as he tried to draw in the scent and failed. Or perhaps a scent only, so thin that no wind would carry it to him? Perhaps someone else could feel it, someone else could touch it—

But no one else would sense it in the same way he did, a shine beneath the skin, a note beneath the level of awareness. Harry clasped his hands and tried to sit upright on the stool and do nothing else, because if he moved he thought he would start laughing out loud for joy, and that would surely make Schroeder alert to the fact that something was wrong.

"I understand, sir," Ron was mumbling, nodding and bobbing his head as though he was the mindless puppet Schroeder wanted him to be. Or had reduced him to be, Harry thought, and anger cut through the joy, that Ron should ever have to do something like this, should have to pretend to be stupid when so many people wanted to think he was already. But it would avail him little if he burst out with that now, so he bowed his head and waited for the moment the power building in the air would break.

"Do you."

Schroeder sounded distracted, and didn't make it a question. Harry looked up and saw the way his head turned, his eyes focused on air that didn't move. Did he sense the magic, too? Could he do something in time to counteract it? Harry's muscles tensed. He could still throw himself at Schroeder's legs and knock him down if he had to, and he would, if the bastard attacked in a way that hurt Ron or Malfoy.

_No. __Wait. __Listen._

The voice might have been Malfoy's from the way it compelled him, but Harry didn't think it was. It was a bit much to think that Malfoy could make a potion that would allow him to speak to Harry from a distance like that, based only on impulses he hadn't expressed yet, however much of a genius he might be in other ways. But Harry could make his decisions, and he could decide that he wanted to trust Malfoy, and he could wait and react if that was what would make the most sense.

He waited some more, and Schroeder lifted his head and turned in a complete circle, hand reaching up as if to grasp something. Harry thought he saw a scarlet thread of blood gleam in his hand for a moment, and wondered if Malfoy had sent something into the cell.

Campion, who had remained silent until that moment out of what seemed like a mixture of surprise, despair, and Firewhisky, looked up, too. "What are you doing, uncle?" he asked, with Harry's intonation and the drink's slur.

Schroeder's rapt look vanished, and he dropped his hand. If he had held a scarlet thread, Harry thought, it was ripped out of existence now, but nothing crumbled from his fingers when he moved them apart.

"Take my nephew out of here," he said sharply, and fixed his eyes on Campion's face. Harry's face, really, and Harry hoped that Malfoy had something that could reverse this potion for him without getting rid of Campion's own disguise, because otherwise looking into a mirror would get disconcerting. "I have something to say to _Mr._Potter."

"Yes, sir," Ron murmured, and stepped forwards, one hand reaching for Harry's arm. Harry let himself be jerked off the stool, because he knew Ron would never have done it if he hadn't thought it necessary to convince Schroeder.

The way that Ron glared at him as he pulled him along seemed more realism than necessary, though, and Harry knew his luck had run out when Ron began to hiss at him in a low voice as they traveled past Longwatch's indulgent eye.

"Harry, you _idiot. _Why did you let him bait you? Because I know that's what it was, and you don't need to lie otherwise."

"That's what it was," Harry said, keeping his head down as if ashamed and barely moving his lips. He was sure Ron would hear him. They had heard each other before, in more trying circumstances. "No excuses. He meant to provoke me into attacking him so he could lock me up, and I fell for it."

Ron was silent for a few minutes as they left the holding cells and entered the long, blank, well-guarded corridor outside it. Then he shook his head. "At least you can admit it," he said.

"What, slightly stunned?" Harry lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "There's no need to be. I had time to think about it, after all. I realize you were right. I've been letting my temper run away from me, and that's a detriment to my work as an Auror. We're here to solve the cases and make sure the perpetrators find justice and the victims mercy. I forgot that in my own desire to be right."

Ron was silent for so long that Harry wondered if his astonishment at _this_ was overcoming his astonishment at Harry's initial admission. Then he said, "Nothing about using Dark Arts, I see."

If they were alone, Harry would have asked him outright about the tone in his voice, but they had to pass a cluster of Aurors at the moment, who stared at them and burst out into loud, obnoxious talk as soon as they passed. When they were safely back around a corner, Harry sighed and said, "The Dark Arts influenced my temper. And that Retrovoyance spell influenced my investment in the cases. So, yeah, they contributed to me being out of control. And that's something that needs to stop."

"I wish," Ron said, and then shook his head. "Something I don't have words for." He went on before Harry could question him. "Malfoy is waiting. I think he has something that can give you back your normal appearance again without making Campion look like himself."

"Good." Harry nodded. "Do you know what it was that he did to Schroeder in the cell? I wouldn't have thought he could influence him from a distance. I know he must have had Campion drink something to switch our appearances, of course."

"Of course," Ron said, again with an odd tone in his voice, and again his voice surged on before Harry could question it. "The only thing I know is that he gave me a mirror to let him see into the cell, and told me not to act surprised by anything that might happen, at least with Schroeder. Oh, and he told me that he needed some of your blood for a potion."

"You managed to acquire some?" Harry didn't leave his blood lying casually around his flat, where he knew Malfoy probably would have got the ingredients for the potion that had made them switch appearances.

"Well," Ron said. "Um. You know how you sometimes spill blood at a crime scene and it's still on a piece of evidence?"

Harry smiled in spite of himself, because Ron's embarrassment made him have to. "Yeah. So you gave that to him?" He made a quiet noise in the back of his throat, as some of his Potions theory reading came back to him. He might be pants at the practical part, but he needed to know about poisons and healing potions at the least, and that had led him elsewhere. "It sounds like he might have used a potion that convinced Schroeder to think what he most wanted to think about me. And that's that I was exactly the kind of recalcitrant troublemaker who would break out again and be stupid enough to get caught, thus making all sorts of trouble for myself. Malfoy would have sent the potion through the mirror."

Ron stared at him over his shoulder, then frowned. "Well. Maybe. It seems strange."

Harry nodded, but couldn't suppress his smile.

_Malfoy.__ We __have __things __to__ talk __about._

_ And things that involve me listening to you, whether or not you'll remove this potion you have on me._


	14. In a Meeting

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Fourteen-In a Meeting_

"Malfoy?"

"No need to sound so surprised, Potter," Draco drawled, and made sure that when he looked up from the parchments in front of him, his notes on the latest experimental lust potion, he kept the motion of his head properly slow and uninterested. "I assume Weasley _did _tell you I would meet you."

"He said you were waiting."

One glance at Potter, and Draco felt his own estimation of himself climb a few more notches. The potion had managed to disguise even Potter's swagger in the half-stumbling gait that Campion preferred. It _was _Campion Fipps, to all appearances, who took the seat across Draco's kitchen table from him, though perhaps Campion could not have managed the searching look in his own amber-brown eyes.

Draco gathered his notes, lining up the edges so neatly and precisely that he made Weasley snort. Well, Weasley could. He and Draco were in charity on this, as on many other things, and he needed no scolding to make him understand his place in the plans.

Potter was a different matter.

Draco watched the way he leaned his elbows on the table and then leaned in, his face intense. Yes, Potter under the disguise, but a Potter who Draco hoped the cells had chastened. He laid his fingers together and ignored the insult implied by the word "waiting," because if he was waiting for anything, it was for Potter to prove he wasn't an arsehole.

Potter took a few minutes to study Draco as if waiting for _reassurance_ that he wasn't, then sighed and ducked his head. "Thank you for rescuing me," he said, with measured pauses in the back of his voice that Campion had never mastered. "And thank you for warning me about the Dark Arts. Thank you for that bloody potion, even. I would have tried them on Schroeder if not for it, and then that would have ruined things even more than they have been ruined."

"Nothing is ruined that a Potions master is willing to retrieve." Draco leaned nearer. "Did you realize it merely kept you from using such spells as the Retrovoyance curse on me, not on others?"

Potter paused, a muscle ticking near the corner of his jaw. Draco estimated the distance between them and shook his wand into his hand under cover of the table. If he had to get out of the way quickly, then he could do that.

"No," was all Potter said, and his hands spread out on the tabletop, not even shaving flakes of wood from it with his nails. "I didn't know that."

Draco jerked his head a little. "Do you plan to change your behavior now that you do?"

* * *

_I planned to change it even before then, Malfoy, you prick._

But Malfoy, of course, would have no reason to think that.

Harry leaned back and puffed out a long breath, so long he thought it took most of the anger with it. And what was the anger, really? So Malfoy had used a potion on him that worked a certain way, and Harry had assumed, without asking, that it worked another way. The potion had still acted as a chain on him at the moment when he needed a chain most, and for that, he couldn't be angry. He smoothed his hands up and down the tabletop before he answered.

"Yes. I have to. I was thinking about that in prison. You were right. I was acting unstable, and that put the investigation in danger, and _that _puts the children in danger. You and Ron could have continued it, but it would be helpful if I wasn't constantly crashing around and getting in trouble, as well as attracting Schroeder's attention." He raised his eyes to Malfoy's. "Can you still work with me? Or do you need to use another potion to ensure you can trust me?"

A flicker like wind in a field traveled across Malfoy's face. He turned away before Harry could recognize it and rose, setting the tea-things to dancing.

Harry recognized delaying behavior when he saw it. He leaned back with his arms still casually resting on the table, and his eyes anything-but-casually interpreting Malfoy. The turned back, the half-hunched shoulders that straightened as he watched, the swinging hair that swung more fiercely around his face as Malfoy turned back to him.

He knew half of what Malfoy would say before he said it. Things like that were what made him a good Auror. The half-training, half-experience that flickered into being, as fast as the expression that Malfoy had changed, perhaps to keep Harry from fully seeing it.

_Things like that, and not the Dark Arts._

Harry bowed his head before the lash of guilt, but kept his eyes on Malfoy. _He _was what mattered in a situation like this. Not Harry, not the stupid things Harry might say or do. Malfoy was the one who had to make the decision, and the one who had the right to make it. He had got Harry out of the Ministry, and in a way that Harry thought Schroeder wouldn't be able to figure out even if he suddenly discovered that "Harry" was Campion. He was the leader here.

Harry had never been happy following orders, but he could do it. After a lifetime of so much shit and fighting and hunting and coming back from the dead, there were plenty of things he could do even if he hated them. Someone only had to prove it was worth his while, and Malfoy had.

"That you would let me use a potion on you," Malfoy said, sitting back down again and staring at and through Harry as the water began to boil behind him, "_is _a change." His head turned in Ron's direction.

"No, Ron didn't put me up to this," Harry answered. "You can thank my delayed common sense. Do you want to?"

* * *

_No, I do not wish to thank your common sense, _Draco thought, but that was not what Potter meant, and he would be more childish than he wished to be, even to Potter, if he responded like that.

He closed his eyes and ran his fingers through his hair for a moment. Then he sighed and opened his eyes again, dropping his hand from his hair, feeling a lash of anger that he had forgotten enough about Potter to display a gesture such as that. "I wish to use one more," he said. "You would not accept it."

Potter remained still, and that was another difference between him and Campion. Campion had to tap his fingers or his feet, grind his teeth, or whistle under his breath, even when brewing. Draco had never used him on potions that required utter stillness and alertness from the practitioner for that reason. "What is it? Tell me."

"A potion that would let me read your impulses, and connect me to the deeper parts of your mind," Draco answered. It did more than that, but he could not explain the Potions theory in small words even if he wanted to. He had tried more than once with his assistants, versed in more theory than Potter would be if he lived to two hundred. "It would warn me when you were about to do something stupid, or when you thought about charging in."

Potter bowed his head slightly, as though someone was framing his shoulders with an iron yoke. Otherwise, his expression didn't change. "All right."

"Harry!" Weasley stormed, breaking out of his corner and swooping down on Potter. Potter didn't flinch or turn his gaze from Draco. Draco wondered if he himself was that dangerous, or Weasley simply that trusted. "When the Healers wanted to use a potion like that last year, you refused."

"Yes," Potter agreed, still not turning away, not turning a hair. "They told me that I was too stupid to live and that they needed the potion because they thought I might get out of bed in the middle of the night and fall on the floor. Malfoy's already proved to me that I was too stupid to live. If he wants to use the potion, I'm agreeable." He leaned back in the chair, and his eyes turned opaque. "Two things."

_Of course, here are the objections, _Draco thought, and inclined his head. "Yes?"

"I think that potion has ginseng as a component, and I'm allergic to ginseng," Potter said. "You might want to substitute something else, if you can, or else use a stronger compulsion potion. I don't know which would be the better choice."

Draco narrowed his eyes. But Potter knew that ginseng was a component of mind-reading potions, and that they were a variety of compulsion potions. Perhaps he would have to change his mind on the state of Potter's Potions theory knowledge. "I can substitute something else for the ginseng."

Potter nodded to him. "Good. The other thing is that you give me back my own appearance, if you can. Retaining this one will make our next few actions dangerous, if others think Campion is in company with you and Ron."

Draco took pleasure in drawing out a small vial of clear, salty potion from his pocket and setting it down in the middle of the table. "Done."

Weasley blinked and moved away from the table as if this example of Draco's preparedness was simply too much for him. Potter reached out without changing expression and picked up the vial, uncorking it. "No ginseng in this?" he asked, his eyes meeting Draco's.

"You take any excuse you can find not to trust me, don't you?" Draco said, lowering his voice so the words stayed as private as possible.

"You didn't know about my allergy to ginseng until just now," Potter said calmly. "No reason to think you might have anticipated it." And he tilted his head back and swallowed the potion without a grimace for the taste, which Draco knew to be worse than seawater.

His features shuddered and bulged, the Campion mask sliding away from them like watered-down paint. Weasley put a hand over his mouth. Draco forced himself to watch-no one would say that he was less capable of beholding the results of one of his potions than a Weasley-and Potter put the empty vial down and nodded to him, looking like himself again.

"Right. You want to get that potion that's going to let you read my impulses? Or brew it, I reckon, if you have to substitute something else for the ginseng."

Draco rose slowly to his feet, never looking away from those green eyes. Potter remained still, his face placid, his hands folded behind his head now as he prepared for a long wait.

"None of this convinces me that you trust me," Draco said.

"I know," Potter said. "Should we discuss what we're going to do next, Ron and I, while you brew? Or are you able to join in the conversation despite the delicacies of brewing the potion?"

Draco narrowed his eyes. Still there was no mockery, and he had become preternaturally sensitive to it after the war. There were so many ready to sneer at him for having been a Death Eater, for having been a Slytherin or a Malfoy, that he learned to read the shadows of sneers before they appeared.

"Fine," he said abruptly. "You and Weasley stay here and talk about ways to overthrow my evil empire, and I'll brew." He turned towards his lab, listening for a snicker behind him.

There was nothing, and he shut the door with an echoing click, then spent five minutes in deep breathing exercises before he could go and search his supply cupboard for a suitable substitute.

He had not thought that Potter's surrender to him would rattle him as badly as Potter's attempts to resist.

* * *

"I know what you're doing," Ron said to him, in such a low voice Harry thought he felt the buzz in his bones more than heard it.

"Do you?" Harry leaned back and rubbed the nape of his neck with one hand. His hand ached. He snorted and flexed out his fingers, listening to the way the tendons bent. He would have to be careful that his tension didn't keep him from resting or cramp up his hands. He didn't want to try and react quickly with hands curled into claws when he wanted to draw his wand. "More than I do."

Ron hesitated, then plunged ahead. "Then you didn't mean what you said, about wanting Malfoy to use that potion?"

Harry closed his eyes and rolled his head on the back of the chair, this time trying to relax his neck. "I don't want him to use it, no. But he has to, partially because I don't trust myself and partially because he needs to have a chain like that on me, I think, until some time has passed and I haven't done anything stupid." _Which means it might have to be there for a long time._

"Then this _is _it," Ron said, and his tone made Harry open an eye and look at him. "You don't want him to do it, so of course you're doing it. You're giving yourself up to him the way you give yourself up to a case."

"I haven't run off on my own to investigate a mysterious sound yet," Harry said lightly. "So I don't think so."

Ron shook his head, his face still plunged in gloom. "I've seen this before. Do you remember what happened when we had to ally with that Lestrange cousin to take Rabastan down?"

"Yes," Harry said, blinking. He thought he had behaved rather well in that instance. He hadn't threatened the Lestrange cousin, although he was also a Dark wizard. He had worked with him and listened to his warnings about what Rabastan was capable of instead of rushing into things. "I didn't kill anybody. I didn't get hurt. We captured Rabastan safely. What more should I have done?" he added, a little roughly, because Ron was staring at him and shaking his head, and he _really _didn't know why.

"You gave yourself up completely in just this same way," Ron said. "That bastard demanded you surrender your will and not trust your own instincts or anything but what he said, and you _did_."

"We had to walk a swaying bridge over that pit of illusions Rabastan had built," Harry said. "Without him to tell us what was real, we would have fallen to our deaths and drowned in two inches of water. Anyway, he'd already done the hard part of scouting out the caves and casting spells that would let him see through the illusions."

"You didn't hold back," Ron said. "You gave yourself over completely. And you're doing the same thing with Malfoy."

Harry pulled his hands down into his lap and stared at Ron. "One minute you're chiding me for not trusting _enough_," he said. "Then you're chiding me for trusting too much. Or do you really think that Malfoy's going to betray us? I know you don't believe that very seriously, or you would never have worked with him even if he did promise to free me."

"You don't hold back," Ron said. "Not with cases, not when you decide to trust someone like this. Not enough to make yourself safe. You stand or you fall depending on the decisions of someone else or your own instincts."

Harry shrugged. "That's the kind of person I _am_, Ron. I walked to my own death on Dumbledore's say-so, and there I had to trust not only him but that Snape's memories were the real thing and he wasn't trying to kill me from beyond the grave or something."

Ron stepped back, his fingers brushing over his wand. Harry watched his hand. Ron wasn't above chaining him down or Stunning him for his own good, as he had proved more than once, but this time, Harry didn't think he'd deserved it, which meant he would fight.

"He did get you out of prison," Ron muttered. "And he's proven himself more trustworthy than I thought he could so far. I have to remember that." He mumbled and huffed to an end, and then stood there with a frown, his arms wound together over his stomach as though protecting himself.

"Remember that," Harry echoed, and turned his attention to the door that hid Malfoy's private lab. He would give Malfoy all the time he needed, and he would drink the potion when it was brought, and he would do as Malfoy asked, within reason. There was a difference between holding back from using Dark Arts or rushing into a situation because Malfoy asked and allowing someone to be injured or killed.

_I do have my own limits. They're just not ones that Ron approves of._

* * *

Draco stepped out an hour later with the newly-brewed potion dancing and foaming and smelling of cinnamon in the vial, half-expecting Potter to have departed. Instead, he sat in the same chair and didn't look as though he had grown bored or impatient any more than a stone statue would. Weasley was the one who leaned against the wall, fussing and fuming and glaring at Draco and then away. Draco raised an eyebrow at him and turned back to Potter.

"This is a rather strong potion," he said. "You might not want to drink it all at once."

"It's more effective if I wait, then?" Potter stretched out a hand and took the vial Draco gave him. He looked at it with mild curiosity, but no more than that, and then switched his gaze back to Draco. Draco tried not to fume, but it was hard to resist the temptation.

"No, it's more effective if drunk all at once," he said. "But it kicks."

"I can deal with a kick," Potter said. But he held off from pouring the potion down his throat. "Should I drink it with something? Food, perhaps, or water? I don't want your labor to have been for nothing."

Draco sat down and busied himself with crossing his legs and folding his arms for a moment. "I wouldn't have expected you to care about that," he said.

"When someone goes to the lengths you have to rescue me and make sure I can still do my job, then I care."

Potter's face was no easier to read now than it had been a moment ago. Draco gave up the attempt and stared into the far corner of the room. "The first moments after downing the potion are disconcerting for both the drinker and the one who finds himself connected to the drinker's mind," he said. "Since we are both sitting down and fully warned, I suggest you begin."

He saw the bending of Potter's arm from the corner of his eye, and grimaced to himself. He did not understand his own reactions, his wariness that Potter was doing what Draco had wanted, his almost-disappointment, but he would not allow them to rule him. He curled his fingers into the rungs on the back of his chair and hung on.

The potion arrived as a sigh at first, a trembling motion in his blood that made his sight waver. He turned back to Potter and saw him with his eyes closed, a flush in his cheeks.

Then the first effects hit.

Draco's vision reoriented itself as though he had come out of a dark room into brilliant sun. He saw the room in front of him above the horizon, and under it was Potter's own view, a blurry image of Draco's face. Draco held his patience, knowing that the potion only lingered on the surface of the mind, near the senses, for a few moments.

Then he dived beneath, and he stood amid the tugging, roaring flood of Potter's thoughts, his impulses careening past him.

_Trust. Sit still. Run. Hide. No. Trust. Sit still. Be still. Trust. Drink. Accept-_

Draco reeled, but managed to keep his feet. Potter's still surface was an illusion, he saw clearly now, perhaps meant for his benefit, or for Weasley's. Under that surface, Potter was a quivering ball of-not nerves, perhaps, because that implied more fragility than Draco thought Potter capable of, but impulses constantly tamed and soothed down again. He fought a battle moment by moment with his own instincts and motivations and muscles. He was shatteringly alive, and constrained by a rein of desire to listen to Draco.

Draco wondered if Potter himself had any notion how thin that rein was.

Draco swore softly and concentrated in the way he had been taught, forcing himself to see and sense patterns in Potter's impulses and modify them into a chant, like hearing a distant piece of music. He would hear it as long as the link that the potion created subsisted between them, but that in and of itself was not a problem. He had lived before with harder things, including the incompetent mutterings of his assistants. Bend one's will to a problem, and the problem must buckle.

He could feel Potter moving opposite him, not in opposition but in a dance, and bending his own will to the force. Little by little, the worst quivering subsided, and Draco could open his eyes without fearing that he would start from his own chair and move around the room simply to ease the restlessness.

Potter remained still, hands draped over the arms of his chair, staring at him.

Draco met his eyes and spoke the first words that came to mind, heedless of appropriateness and alliance and Weasley's presence in the room. "How do you _live _with that flood?"

Potter smiled at him and shook his head. "I've been like that since the war," he said simply. "Maybe earlier. It's sort of hard to remember the way you thought when you were a kid, as opposed to what you did, you know? It's just the way I am. Live with a storm most of your life, and you get so used to it that you don't remember what it's like when it's not raining."

Draco shook his head. He wanted to say that it was probably the result of the Dark magic Potter had been using, or perhaps the mad risks he had taken both in his Auror work and when trying to save the world from the Dark Lord-

Except that he didn't know that, and Potter's words indicated a deep level of comfort Draco would waste his breath trying to change. He had the music of Potter's impulses playing in the background now, and would notice when one wave rose higher than the rest or sang an unusual note. For the moment, he would work with the man Potter was, not the one he would have liked him to be.

_ And since when do I care about _that?

Draco shouldered the thought aside and nodded to Weasley, to draw him towards the table and into the conference. "Where do you intend to begin with this investigation? And how soon do you think we can tie it back to Moonstone and Schroeder?"

Weasley stepped up and began answering calmly, clearly, concisely. Potter watched with something that was not amusement, his hands twined together on the table.

Draco listened to Weasley and gave it half his attention. His other half was on the storm, and the way that Potter could hold himself so still when his body and mind were clamoring for action, and trying to understand the contrast.


	15. In Cold Blood

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Fifteen-In Cold Blood_

"And you think this is going to work?"

Harry shrugged and kept his gaze focused on the house in front of him. _Small, _he thought. _Unassuming. Rather like the ambitions of her parents. _"I only know what I think, yes," he answered. "And what I've read in the Ministry's files."

Malfoy hissed behind him, but said nothing. Harry cast one more charm that would polish his dragonhide boots to a glossy shine and smooth back his hair. After a moment's thought, he also cast one that made his Auror robes look like they were newly-stitched. He couldn't do anything about the expression on his face with magic; that would have to come from his real sympathy and his real outrage.

"Stay here for now, unless you feel me about to do something stupid," he added over his shoulder to Malfoy.

Malfoy's hand landed on his back in response. Harry turned to look at him. A fire seemed to burn beneath that hand, but he wasn't sure if it came from him or from the way Malfoy pressed harder than needed in his own anger.

"You would have me stay out of sight because you believe I would frighten the girl's parents." Malfoy barely moved his lips as he spoke the words. A wind whirled along the small alley in which they stood and tossed up his hair, as if in lively contradiction of how still he wanted to be.

Harry spent a moment's fleeting wish on the idea that _he _could have a potion that let him read _Malfoy's _impulses in turn. It would let him know when he had really irritated the bloke and when he was merely doing something Malfoy found troublesome. The first he cared about, if only for the integrity of their alliance. The second, not at all.

"Are we going or not?" Ron whispered beside him, shifting his weight from one boot to another.

"We are," Harry said. "In a second." He felt Ron draw in a breath to object, then let it out again. Harry didn't look at him, though. All his focus was on Malfoy, and his lack of understanding of something Harry had _explained. _If he could fail to grasp that, he might also fail at grasping other things that were far more essential.

"I don't think you might frighten them," he said. "But you don't look like an Auror, and you told me the potion you gave me works best when you can concentrate on it, when you're not involved in a fight or a conversation. This is a situation where I might lose my temper and do something stupid despite my best efforts not to. Besides, everyone knows or thinks they know that Aurors work in pairs and not teams of three."

Malfoy flicked a glance at him. "And you think me incapable of casting a glamour that would guard me from the sight of these precious parents you're so worried about?"

Harry looked back at the house. Small, insignificant, but with the equivalent of an iron fence in wards around it. Not surprising, when their daughter had been taken once. "I think that the glamour might fade when you get close enough, and then it's possible that they won't trust Ron and me enough to tell us anything."

Malfoy waited a moment, so still that Harry wondered what new argument he was coming up with. Then he inclined his head, slow and gentle. "Very well," he said. "I will wait here, and I will listen _closely _to your impulses."

Harry nodded back. He didn't know what in his words had convinced Malfoy, and he didn't intend to care. He turned his back and nodded to Ron. "Let's do this. And hope the Steeles are still willing to talk to us."

Ron's face was nearly as blank as Malfoy's, but he nodded back and took the lead without asking. Harry was the protector, the comforter, the one they relied on to talk hostages nearly comatose with fear back around or terrify a Dark wizard into confession. Ron was the one who could project reassurance and confidence and persuade those who needed logic, not emotion, to talk to them.

Harry followed him, wondering for a moment why it had never occurred to him to resent that fact. He was fairly sure Malfoy would have.

Then again, it was much more important to Malfoy to see himself as someone logical and indispensable in every situation than it was for Harry.

_I can do what I'm best at, and I really shouldn't worry about anyone else._

He hung back as Ron knocked on the door, and watched the tall, elegant woman with neatly-braided hair who answered, and the way her hand relaxed on the door as she saw Ron's Auror robes. "Mrs. Steele?" Ron began, and the nod was out of her almost immediately. "We were wondering if we could talk to you about your daughter Emily..."

* * *

Draco closed his eyes, and listened.

Not to the sounds around him, which, in this small alley near the outskirts of Hogsmeade, were not worthy of being listened to. Birds skirring and chirping, insects worrying one another, the small sounds of a normal night's hunting, a normal night's deaths. The scrape of someone's shoes as they hurried home. His own heartbeat and the sound of the wind playing with a _Prophet _someone had dropped.

But to the song of the impulses in his head, the music that was not his own, and played more merry havoc with him than Potter's blood had the ability to play with potions.

_Escape routes, _whispered the thoughts. _See. Hear. Listen. Two of them in the room, husband has his wand in his sleeve, realize it, be ready to Disarm him if necessary._

Draco shook his head. Potter had insisted the Steeles were absolutely safe as far as people to question went, but the murmured undertone of his mind insisted otherwise.

Of course, he had already realized that Potter had a more-than-healthy dose of paranoia. He need not utterly give in to it. Draco straightened his back against the wall and continued listening, trying to imagine the way things were going in the house from the flicker and dance of Potter's responses to it.

_Smile. Friendly. Smile back? No harm. Settle down. Pick the chair that's hardest, launch yourself from the edge if necessary._

Draco snorted, and then muffled the sound with one hand. He had been careless not to cast charms that would hide him from the sight and hearing of people passing in the street. It would do them little good and probably alarm the Steeles if they thought someone lurked outside, watching them. A few flicks of his wand, and a skilled Disillusionment Charm and Disaudibility Charm covered him. Then he went back to listening, though this time he watched the house out of half-closed eyes instead of shutting them completely.

_Alert, but friendly. Wary now. Leave it up to Ron, he'll explain. Settle back. Smile if you can. No, the husband looks upset when you do. Too many teeth. Keep your face neutral. Stay still._

Draco shook his head. Considering how many times Potter had to repeat instructions to himself to avoid frightening people, perhaps he should have chosen some career where he had to interact less often with the public. The Hit Wizards would have been a good choice, Draco thought, since they spent most of their time nowadays bodyguarding the important members of the Wizengamot.

Then he thought of the ways Potter could have upset wizarding politics in a position like that, and shuddered. _Perhaps he made the right decision after all._

_Suddenness!_

Draco started up. That particular word wasn't one he'd heard before from Potter's mind, and its, well, sudden appearance made him think that something had happened which could cause the couple to distrust Potter.

When he listened, though, he could make nothing out. The sounds around him hadn't changed. The wards hadn't flared around the house. (He could sense them now that he was looking, and although he had potions that could have fooled them, he had to agree with Potter that there was no reason to make the attempt). He could feel the waves of Potter's mind agitating down towards the middle of his thoughts, and in a moment the usual course of the stream resumed.

_Cute kid. Deserves to be protected. Who could hurt her? Scars on her arm. Fury! Disgust! Put on the smile. Show her the scar. Discuss. Nod and make sympathetic noises. Show._

Draco let out a careful breath. Apparently, Potter had only reacted to the child entering the room. As long as it was that and nothing more-and as long as he wasn't about to risk the investigation by cursing the very witch they'd come to interview-then Draco didn't think he needed to intervene.

_Listen. Look. Hear. See. Remember._

Draco lifted his head at that and gently rolled his neck back and forth against the wall behind him, wondering. The "tone" of Potter's internal responses had changed. That was the only way he could classify it. It "sounded" as though he had decided to drum whatever he was talking about more deeply into his mind.

And now it was worse than a storm, or a flood, at least at the very bottom of the dark stream flowing through Draco's head. Now it was the sound of someone deliberately making himself angry because he thought he had to, because otherwise someone else would suffer, and he was determined that that wouldn't happen.

Draco shivered and let his hands rest on his arms for a moment, above the gooseflesh. _I don't want to make Potter angry._

He continued to listen, but heard nothing more remarkable until the end of the interview, when he saw the door of the house open and spill light across the cobblestones, followed by Weasley's cheerful voice. "Thank you for talking to us, Mr. and Mrs. Steele. It could be that you'll help capture the people who did this to your daughter."

"And thank you for speaking with us, Miss Steele." Potter's voice was low, as though he thought enemies lurked outside the house who he didn't want to overhear his conversation with the seven-year-old. _There's only me, _Draco thought. "Yours was the hardest part."

Draco opened his mouth, nearly ready to comment, if only to himself as a relief for his feelings, that she couldn't be expected to understand what Potter was talking about, or why it meant so much to him—

When the voice in the back of his head spoke a single word that gave him a splitting headache on the instant.

_Kill._

Draco leaped out of the alley and started trotting towards the house. He knew he couldn't get there physically before Potter did something that hurt either the couple or the girl, or perhaps Weasley, but his magic could cover the distance—

But Potter shook hands gravely with the family and started down the path that led towards Draco's hiding place, his face gentle and his stride easy and relaxed. The storm in the back of Draco's head sang again.

_When I catch them._

Draco shook his head. So his intervention wouldn't be required for the Steeles, but potentially for Moonstone and Schroeder, or whichever wizards they had hired to do the dirty work.

He could not promise himself to be so quick to intervene the next time, no matter who it hurt.

* * *

"What are we doing here?"

Harry had to smile as he leaned against the wall of the corridor outside his office and watched Ron shuffle through the papers on his desk, looking for the particular file that covered the Steele case. Malfoy, beside him, and under a Disillusionment Charm as well as several spells that would fool the wards, as Harry was, could convey disgruntled without turning either a hair on his head or a cool shade from his voice.

"The usual thing," Harry responded. "Looking for the files that could help us in a case. We don't keep them with us at all times."

Malfoy's hand touched his elbow. Harry tilted his head towards it before he thought about that. Then again, thanks to the charms, any outsiders would see only a blurred, muffled shape. The effect of the combined spells was nearly as good at defeating sight as an Invisibility Cloak, and considerably better on the sound front. "But why did _you _have to come? Why not send Weasley by himself, or me with him, if you thought that he needed a guard?"

"Because of this," Harry said, and reached out with his wand. Malfoy tensed, but he thought Malfoy had been doing that every time Harry cast, whether the impulses at the back of his mind urged him to do Dark Arts or not. Well, he could deal with it, this time. Harry brushed his wand against the side of the office door and chanted the nonverbal incantation he had come up with. He trusted Malfoy with his mind and his life, but not the secret of his wards, not when they had to protect Ron and the privacy of their former investigations as well as himself. _Aranea argenta._

The door flared in a dazzling web of silver lines, though Malfoy flinched back from them and cast a look down the corridor unnecessarily; they were only bright at a range of a foot. Harry watched as two small spirals puffed to life in the corners of the web, indicating that two people had entered the room at widely differing times. The web had to be read like a sundial. One in the morning, one in the afternoon, then, Harry translated. He touched the web with his wand and added in the privacy of his mind, _Da._

The spirals blew towards him, one settling on the end of his wand, and blew up into a full-size image. Harry nodded. It made sense that Grinder would have entered while they were gone and tried to cause any trouble he could.

The image showed Grinder reaching out for Ron's desk and then swaying dizzily, catching himself only with an effort. Harry smiled. Yes, he would, wouldn't he, with the magical remnants of this web draping his head and shoulders?

Harry watched as he stumbled towards the door, rebounded off the doorway, and landed in a heap on the floor outside, roughly where Malfoy stood now. He sat there for a few seconds, head hanging, and then pushed himself to his feet and lumbered off. Now and then he lifted a hand to feel out his tongue, as though it was numbed by eating ice cream and he wanted to make sure he still had one.

Harry smiled. The spell had worked as he expected it would, then. That was good to know. He pulled his wand back and turned to the web again, humming under his breath as he did.

"What was that?"

_Oh, yes, Malfoy. _Harry turned to glance at him. "I set up a web that would mark anyone who tried to come into the office," he said. "It functions as a tracking device, as proof that they were here, and tangles their minds to make sure that they won't do anything else to cause trouble while I'm deciding what to do about them."

Malfoy tucked one strand of hair behind a ear, which Harry had noticed he did sometimes while trying to come up with words that would fit around his emotions. Harry waited for him, wand hovering above the second spiral. He was curious as to who it would be, but he could control his curiosity for the sake of a man who had helped them as much as Malfoy had.

"You did this?" Malfoy asked finally. "Although you knew what being caught practicing Dark Arts could do to you?"

Harry snorted. "I made up this spell, and it's not related closely to any of the wards or compulsion spells that I've already studied. I used a different base. They can't classify it as Dark Arts if no one else has ever used it before."

* * *

Draco stared at Potter in silence. The undertone of the stream in his head was as quiet as it ever got, so he didn't think Potter was about to attack him for his disbelief.

And it was very little else at the moment.

_Potter is capable of creating new spells? Executing them at such a level that they won't show a close relationship to other spells that serve much the same function, and without calling on Dark magic as a function of their nature?_

That did not fit with the portrait of a man Draco would have needed to use either the original potion or the latest one on.

"Tell me," he said, when he saw Potter's eyes turning back towards the spiral that still waited in the web. "Why did that make the man we saw retreat from the office? Surely the best object would be to prevent him from entering in the first place."

Potter showed lion's teeth and settled back against the wall. _Debate, _said the murmur in the back of Draco's mind.

"Do you want to argue spell theory with me, then?" Potter asked. "Because we can. I thought that wasn't our priority, though." He glanced back into the office as if he thought Weasley might be coming out with the files they needed. Draco did not think so—for all Weasley's virtues, being quick to identify small things did not appear to be among them—and he made a soft sound. Potter turned back to him. "A spell that prevented someone from entering would either have to take the form of a barrier or of the charms that some people use on their houses, to make Muggles forget that a building exists. Both have disadvantages. A barrier is too obvious. A charm that makes them forget they wanted to enter in the first place is actually more noticeable than a barrier in the end, unless it only works on people who have no real business near the place, because sooner or later they'll wonder what you want to protect so badly. Besides, using charms like that on wizards is technically forbidden by law."

"You _do _know the laws, then," Draco said, letting the words slip from their leash before he considered them.

Potter bared his teeth again. "Of course. I am an Auror, after all."

Draco shook his head. "Then why do you persist in casting spells such as the Retrovoyance curse? It could cost you your job, and you know the theory behind it—you must." He gestured to the web shimmering in front of them. "If you could create something like this, you could create a safer alternative to the Retrovoyance curse."

"It would have taken years to develop," Potter said, shrugging. "And until you proved it to me, the ill effects I received from it were never important enough to me to stop." He paused, as if waiting for Draco to ask other questions, and then turned back to the web and called the other spiral to him.

Draco touched a potions vial waiting in the pocket of his robe, and then, with difficulty, forced his hand away. He had already given Potter more than enough potions that made him easier to work with. Depending on too many of them was vulgar, not to mention expensive and hard on his brewing time and ingredients budget.

He didn't need another potion, not as long as he had the one that connected him to the deepest level of Potter's mind and taught him what this stranger with familiar eyes beside him could do and want.

This time, the spiral opened out into an image of two Aurors Draco had reason to recognize, considering they had been the ones who arrested him. He stiffened before he thought about it, and Potter leaned forwards. Draco canted his head to the side so that Potter's hair was no longer obscuring the image.

They stepped through the web without pausing, though the taller one lifted his head as though sensing a scent in the air, the way Schroeder had when he first grasped the thread of Potter's blood. Then they leaned on the desks and began a desultory conversation. Draco heard only a soft murmur, not enough to make out any words, and for a moment viciously wished that Potter's web worked better than it did.

Then he snorted to himself. _Yes, wish the miracle more miraculous._

A moment later, both Aurors left Potter and Weasley's office and strode away in opposite directions. Draco watched them go, watched the vision dissolve, and listened to the wordless laughter of the stream in his mind before he gave in and asked, "What did that do?"

"Hmmm?" Potter was staring at nothing with a faint smile, but he turned around, blinked, and realigned himself with reality when he heard Draco's question. "Ah. The same thing it did to Grinder."

Which wasn't an answer. Draco smiled and reached for his wand, and Potter seemed to realize that he hadn't provided that answer a moment before Draco would have been socially and morally obligated to hex him.

"The web confines their thoughts, and makes them run on several precise patterns," Potter said, sounding as though Draco had required a tooth of him for each word. "Mostly copied from the web. They can't think about anything except whatever brought them into the office in the first place—either orders from someone else, as it seems for Wilding and Kinzie, or the malice that made them intent on trying to find secrets to ruin us, like Grinder. They'll obsess over it, make loud and inappropriate noises in the wrong places, and probably end up getting arrested."

"The Ministry _would _arrest you for mind control if they knew," Draco said quietly.

"This fits under an obscure art called mind-_shaping_ instead," Potter said, and let one shoulder rise and fall. "It's not my fault that it's not often practiced now, and then usually by people who know as much about the laws of the Ministry and what they can require and what they _can't _as I do. Not to mention that it's always been legal for private use. Some wizards who were involved in consensual relationships based on slavery or arranged marriages objected when the Ministry tried to ban them."

"You have the knowledge," Draco said. "The power. The inherent skill to create spells, which is the thing that most people who want to do it never acquire, even if they can find the knowledge by study." He leaned towards Potter, who stared back at him. "Why don't you do something else? Why this?"

"Why don't you do something besides brewing Potions?" Potter asked.

Draco felt as though he teetered on the edge of a precipice in more ways than one, which must be why he answered as he did. "That's where my talents lie, and it's what makes me most joyful and most convinced of my own brilliance."

Potter smiled back at him, a smile that softened the hard edges to his eyes. "Well said."

Draco opened his mouth, then closed it again, and then they waited in silence until Weasley came out of the office, the Steele file clutched in his hands. He was the one who looked back and forth between them as though to make a comment, and then shook his head.

_And if neither Weasley nor Potter can find the words, _Draco thought, his mockery twisted back to sting at himself like a scorpion's tail, _who am I to think I can?_


	16. In Trouble

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Sixteen—In Trouble_

"_This _is the best place to start?"

Harry said nothing, but left Ron to mutter something to Malfoy about what the Steele file said. Malfoy would already know what Harry thought, anyway, thanks to the potions bond connecting them.

He was busy moving forwards, his head bowed and his nostrils flaring, although logically he knew the signs of Emily Steele's kidnapping would have worn away long ago. Physical traces would be eradicated.

That didn't mean all magical traces would be—if her kidnappers had been wizards and not Muggles, as the Ministry had tried to declare in the official report.

They stood next to a small, swift trickle of water, not so much a proper river as a half-stream that presumably wound down to the sea somehow. The banks were rough stone, projecting up sharply enough that Harry could imagine a child clambering on them and injuring herself.

Not that that would have mattered to the people who had kidnapped Steele and tried to use her, of course.

Harry glanced over his shoulder at the few houses nearby, and strengthened the Muggle-Repelling Charm he'd extended around them the minute they arrived here. The last thing they needed was Muggle police arresting them because they'd had the nerve to wander around and talk about lost children while wearing funny clothes.

"There's nothing here," Malfoy said, appearing at Harry's side in that silent way he had. "Why would they have brought her here?"

"That's what we need to find out, isn't it," Harry said. He saw Malfoy stiffen beside him and turn his head slowly, as though he assumed Harry was insulting him. Harry ignored him and cast a different kind of charm this time, a tracking charm that had nothing Dark about it, so there was no reason for Malfoy to reach out for a moment as though he would restrain Harry.

The tracking charm made a series of faint footprints light up the bank, and Harry exhaled hard. He bent down and trailed his hand through the purple-grey light, then his wand, and then cast another charm. This time, the footprints darkened like bruises, and Harry nodded. The darkening represented how old they were in terms of weeks or months, indicating _this _time that they had indeed been made during the period of the Steele kidnapping.

"It doesn't mean they were the wizards who took her," Malfoy said quietly, crouching beside Harry and shifting his weight. "Only that wizards came here."

"But, as you said, there's nothing here," Harry said, waving his hand at the houses, the dusty road, the rocky and straggling ground. "So why come here at all?"

Malfoy frowned, but said nothing. Harry studied the footprints again. They appeared out of nowhere on one side of the bank, led down into the water, and led up again on the other side before vanishing into nowhere. But that was hardly unusual when most of the criminals they tracked had mastered the skill of Apparition.

"Potter?"

Harry turned his head, wondering for a moment if Malfoy had another argument against these being the footprints of kidnappers. But Malfoy held something small and silvery in his palm, staring at it. Harry leaned forwards to look, aware of Ron coming down the other side of the stream, cursing quietly as the cold water splashed his ankles.

So Harry was the only one close enough to react when silvery spikes snapped out of the ring and arched down towards Malfoy's palm.

"_Protego!_" Harry shouted, still one of his most powerful spells since he had been practicing it for so long, and the spikes slid to a halt as the small shield appeared around Malfoy's hand and arm, a swirl of diminishing silver. Harry hopped back, his eyes warily on the ring, as it spun and oriented on him. It didn't have any figure on it, only a blank stone, but that didn't matter, he thought. He could feel it watching him anyway.

Harry grinned back, and made sure to show his teeth. He had dealt with enough malevolent artifacts in his time to know how to handle this one.

The ring leaped at him from Malfoy's hand. Harry saw Malfoy's other hand, the unshielded one, instinctively rise to follow it, but he stopped himself from what might have been a fatal snatch just in time. His nostrils flaring, he moved a step backwards, his eyes narrowed and his legs tensed beneath him.

Harry slammed another Shield Charm into place in front of the ring. It hit it and darted to the side, trying to come around the curve of the shield. Harry added another shield, and a second, and a third, and by the time the ring looked as if it would fly off to the side and it wished it had never started this attack in the first place, there was a circle of shields all around it. Harry added another one, a flat one, stretched lengthwise along the ground when the ring started to drop and act as if it would bury itself in the mud.

Harry stepped closer, and let his breath rustle out between his teeth. The ring, hovering above that last charm he'd laid, didn't react. It stayed in place, and Harry got a better look at it.

It was a strange metal, dull like iron but with the silvery shine that must have drawn Malfoy's attention to it in the first place; he didn't have Auror-trained eyes, and Harry could imagine missing him something as small and dull as it would have looked without that. The stone was small and unfamiliar as well, oval and without reflections. Harry wondered for a moment if it was onyx, but no, that would at least be black. This was no color at all, as though someone had fastened a small piece of oblivion between the iron prongs on the top of the ring.

"Potter."

Harry nodded. He knew that tone. Ron was wise enough to wait patiently and use whatever information might come out of it when Harry was examining something new like this, but he knew Malfoy would get impatient and want the explanation now.

When he glanced up, Malfoy had the same narrow eyes and flared nostrils fixed on him. Perhaps he had heard some of Harry's thoughts through the potion that connected them. Harry rolled one shoulder back in a shrug and answered.

"The spikes looked thin and hollow enough to drain blood from you to me. Why would they want blood in a ring? That's the question." He faced it again, and cast the first of several spells that ought to identify charms on the ring, as well as tell him whether someone was using it as a spy artifact right now.

* * *

Draco saw Weasley's face tighten. He didn't know for certain why this time, however. Potter hadn't given the best explanation that he could have, but he had given _an _explanation, and he hadn't touched the ring himself. He walked around it in its cage of shields, his mouth wrinkled into a frown, and now and then cast another charm. The charms had no utility that Draco could see, but the ring hadn't yet broken free.

He moved to the side in response, while Weasley drew his wand to cast a few spells of his own. Draco had an idea, which he held contained and cool in his mind for a moment. He would not know he was right until he saw the side of the ring.

The silvery metal continued to have a dull sheen which puzzled him. He knew a few materials that might have that look, but none of them would have been used to construct a ring. They would remain molten, in specially protected and highly expensive jars, until the Potions masters had need of them.

Then Draco paused and smiled.

_Unless, by being made into a ring, they had the ability to obtain something more valuable than the metal itself._

He stepped to the side, and now he could see it. The stone lay lightly on top of the ring. The prongs that held it looked cheap, more like Muggle craft than wizard. But they would serve for what was needed: to hold the stone firmly by one side, and let it swing to the other when someone pressed a mechanism Draco hadn't found yet.

"Potter."

He seemed to have interrupted in the middle of a spell, but Potter said nothing about that, simply turned his head and came with light steps to Draco's side. He saw at once what Draco pointed out, but only waited, his head tilted slightly to the right. Draco wondered if he didn't know, or was letting him explain. The impulses that murmured and sang in the back of his head were quiet at the moment, perhaps because Potter had to concentrate on the magic and it left him less room to come up with sudden actions.

"The ring has a hollow container beneath the stone," Draco said quietly. "Useful for storing a skin-contact poison."

"Or the blood it would have taken from you." Potter caressed his wand, nodding. "Yes, I see."

"Or something else," Draco said, although he was virtually sure Potter _was _right and the ring would have ended by taking blood from him. Those hollow spikes were too convenient for that, too slender for much else. "A Potions master made this ring, or knew where to buy it."

"So we have one to look for among our enemies." Potter sucked his teeth, a disgusting noise, and the impulses chattered again. _Hunt. Kill. Find. _"Do you see anything on the ring that might identify who we're looking for?"

Draco turned his head, slowly, ready to open his mouth and give Potter the full blast of freezing air that question deserved, but Weasley spoke up. "I can. There's a pattern around the stone. Looks like thorns twined together. I don't know if it means much, but I can see it."

Draco turned around. Weasley was holding his wand at a strange angle, and a thin beam of light came from it that seemed to fade a few inches from the wand. Obviously, it lit the ring in a way not immediately obvious to Draco, and brought the inscription within his sight. Draco gave a stiff nod in return.

Potter clapped Weasley on the back. "And once again, you think to use the spells that no one else does," he said. "Does that sound like something you would recognize, Malfoy?"

Draco sighed. "Perhaps. I would need to see it myself. Can you strengthen the spell that allows you to see, Weasley?"

Weasley responded with a quick glide of his wand back and forth, and the beam of light grew until it flooded the air around the ring with pale blue light, and made the shields glitter like prisms. The ring twisted in midair as though trying to escape their gazes, but Draco could see what Weasley meant now. He would have described it as a pattern of branches rather than thorns himself, slender lines that broke into countless points and then stretched off in new directions, deeply impressed into the metal.

Draco frowned. He had indeed seen something like that before, buried years back in the books he had read to attain his Potions mastery…

When he remembered it, he shook his head. "Well, that at least confirms that Moonstone and Schroeder are choosing to do mad things," he murmured.

"What?" Potter was at his side in instants, closer than he had been before, green eyes savage with need, while the stream in the back of his head sang, _Give, give, know, strangle, take. _"Tell me."

Draco reached out and let his hand rest along Potter's ribs for a moment. Potter looked at him, neither moving nor stirring, and Draco let it stay. Potter trusted him enough to let him do this, to let Draco—although, without a mind-reading potion of his own, Potter would have no reason to know this—feel the contrast between his calm body and that racing mind.

"The patterns were inscribed on the beakers and cauldrons and vials of a Potions master named Galen in the sixteenth century," Draco said. "He had a last name once, but no one knows what it was. His family cast him out and burned him from the tapestry."

"That doesn't necessarily mean anything," Weasley said. "We knew people during the war who had been burned off their family tapestries for no worse crime than opposing Muggle-baiting."

"Galen was no Sirius Black," Draco said, wondering for a moment at the Gryffindor tendency to want to see the best in everyone. _Do they sit Dark wizards down for a nice cup of tea first and ask them if they'd like to reconsider their actions and come along to this cool, comfortable cell?_

_Kill. Destroy. Hold back. Take. Listen. Learn._

Draco had to smile. No, Weasley might ask Dark wizards and even former Death Eaters about the cup of tea and coming along quietly to the cell, but he was fairly sure Potter never would.

Strange to feel so much comfort in the presence of an Auror whom he was sure that he would have feared had Potter been trained and active during his trial.

"What exactly did he do then?" Weasley asked, extending a hand and waving it up and down between Potter and Draco.

Draco blinked and nodded to Weasley, thanking him for disrupting a silent communion that had gone on too long. He could grow addicted to being near Potter, and it was better to back away while he still had a chance. "He hated Muggles. He thought it would be best if the world changed so that he never had to be around them again. But instead of building a lab in a secluded location and staying there like your usual mad isolationist wizard, he decided to develop a potion that would change them."

"Into animals?" Weasley asked, his voice hushed. "Well, I reckon I've known people who think the world would be better off if all the non-magical people were rabbits or birds instead of humans—"

"No," Potter said, and his voice was an echo from faint and far away. "That's not what Galen wanted, is it? He wanted to turn the Muggles into wizards. So that he would never have to see anyone who didn't have magic again, so that no one could ever claim to be different from him, so that he wouldn't have to understand anyone who didn't have the same experiences he did."

Draco nodded to Potter. He would not have put it exactly like that, but then, Potter wasn't pure-blood. And from the look in his eyes, and the wordless clash of waves that the stream of impulses had gone into, he was once again hearing the cries of the girl whose death he had listened to with the Retrovoyance curse. The Muggle girl whom they had killed when they could not make her into a witch.

"Yes," Draco said. "Galen didn't care about the _level _of power. He didn't care if he was surrounded by weak wizards and witches—and the history books say that he was strong himself, so he might have preferred it. Thus, he made devices, and put this pattern on them, which were meant to take magic from wizards and transfer it into Muggles' bodies. It would leave the wizards weak, with lowered levels of magic, and it wouldn't give the Muggles much, but it would make everyone the same."

"That's impossible," Weasley said. "I mean, if someone could really do that, we would have heard about it before now. Instead, we have all these sorts of people who perform rituals to argument their power and find out that they can't take magic permanently from someone else."

_Kill, _Potter's mind said, the many voices for once joined into a single word, and Draco reached out to touch his arm and feel the state of the clenched muscles. Potter stood there, hearing them, but not seeing them.

"The mistakes they have made in the past," Draco said, "were to try and take all the magic from someone, instead of only a part, like Galen tried to. Like the kidnappers who took the Steele girl may have removed from her. And I do not believe that most people would have tried to give it to a Muggle. They tried to take it themselves, and their own magic would fight that as well as the system of the wizard they were stealing from. A Muggle would have none of that natural resistance."

"They kill their mistakes," Potter said dreamily. "There is no reason for that. They could have _Obliviated _her and restored her to her family."

Draco moved closer to him. _Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, _said the same clear voice over and over in the back of his mind, and he worried for what Potter might do if Draco himself did not do something.

"Yes," Draco said. "They may be doing something else, something they do not feel they can risk. Galen did not discover how to take magic from wizards and give it to Muggles, although he thought he had. Moonstone and Schroeder may have been guarding their secret, and fearing that, if a wizard noticed Muggle children were wandering about in large numbers with Memory Charms on them, that person could break them and understand what had happened, whether or not the children did."

"They treated them like sacrifices," Potter whispered. "Like animals. Confined them. Tortured them. Made them feel like _freaks_."

Draco opened his mouth to answer at the same time as Weasley stepped forwards, but the sound of twisting metal overrode what Draco would have said. He whipped around and watched the bottom part of the ring, distant from the stone, parting and bending inwards towards it. The ring fought, given life by the Dark magic left buried in it, but Potter's merciless power gave it no chance.

"Harry, that's our _evidence!_" Weasley yelled.

Draco opened his mouth to tell Weasley what an idiot he was being, thinking words like those would restrain Potter, but Potter shut his eyes, and the ring stopped bending. For a moment, Draco heard nothing but wordless noise from the back of his head, and thought that Potter would simply explode from the tension and contradictions next to him.

And then Potter opened his eyes and nodded, accepting Weasley's words as he meant them. Perhaps that was the only thing that could bring him back when he was in one of those moods, Draco thought, a reference to the case. "All right. So that's what you think happened, Malfoy? Would you be willing to swear to that and place your memories in a Pensieve?"

"We have no important memories for a Pensieve yet, only my best guess as to what happened," Draco said. He slowly took his hand off Potter's arm. It said something that he hadn't removed it even when he thought Potter was going to gut someone, but, he feared, nothing good—only that he was an idiot.

"But we have something we may have figured out," Potter said. "Until we come up with a better theory, we should treat that as what Moonstone and Schroeder are doing. I'm sure of it."

"You might be," Weasley said, leaning in as if he dared Potter to ignore that smattering of freckles across his face. "_I'm _not."

"But we don't have another theory," Potter said. Draco heard the chatter of impulses in the back of his mind again—_Listen, run, take, think_—and let his muscles relax one by one.

"We can come up with one," Weasley said. "And I agree that it's an attractive idea—in some ways," he added, voice faint with what sounded like nausea to Draco. "But we can't act as though we know they're murderers. Not yet. The worst they've done so far is to arrest Malfoy and try to put you in prison. And you know you have plenty of enemies out there who've done worse."

"That's true," Potter said, his head cocked, his eyes wide with what might have been contemplation. _Listen, _said the back of his mind, which wasn't much help. "But if we find out that they have killed children, and scraped their faces off, and tried to hurt them? Then are you going to stand in my way, Ron?"

It was gently said, but Draco knew better than to be fooled. A winter storm might speak in those tones, and unleash its full fury on anyone who denied it what it wanted. Weasley's face grew pale, but he shook his head.

"No, mate," he said. "If we get _proof _that they did something that stupid, then we need to take them down and take vengeance for those children."

Potter nodded, but he scarcely seemed to be listening. His eyes were focused on the ring again. "Can you still read the inscriptions Galen may have made, even with the ring bent the way it is?" he asked Draco, and gestured with his wand. The ring floated towards the side of the shield circle nearest Potter. It didn't fight this time. Perhaps having its circle bent had knocked the spirit out of it.

"Yes," Draco said. "Those kinds of inscriptions aren't destroyed as easily as most others."

"It was still stupid of me to try and damage them," Potter murmured, reaching up with one hand and murmuring a _Finite _that banished the shields. "We'll need our evidence intact to bring charges against Moonstone and Schroeder." The ring landed flat on his palm, and he cradled it, gazing at it.

Draco moved a step nearer. Yes, the patterns were what Weasley had said they were, writhing and reaching, the symbols Galen had chosen because he dreamed of extending magic to everyone. Or so he said. Draco had always seen it as an "altruistic" motive that in reality would surround the caster with weak wizards and thus strip the world of rivals that might challenge him.

"I never thought that someone would take up his research again," Draco murmured. "He died in agony."

"Trying to give his magic to someone else?" Potter glanced at him. Draco looked into those deep eyes and shook his head.

"No. He drank an improperly-brewed potion that he believed would, for a few moments, give him the magic he had taken from someone else and stored. He couldn't use it, but he wanted the experience of being that powerful, even for so short a length of time."

Potter's face closed on his thoughts as effectively as though someone had slammed a door shut. "It sucks," he said, and then handed the ring to Draco and turned to search the small river again, as if he thought he would find another sign of the Steele girl's kidnapping there.

"You can't know that," Draco said.

Potter cocked his head back and uttered a little, high-pitched bark of laughter. "Yes, I can in fact know that being powerful sucks sometimes, Malfoy," he said. Weasley was moving along beside them, scanning the mud as Potter was. He gave them nothing but a single warning glance—as though Draco was the one causing the problems—and then went back to the search.

"I meant," Draco said, thinking all the while that he deserved commendation for his iron will, "that you can't know you're _exactly _as powerful as Galen invented that potion trying to be. You know your level of magic, and nothing higher. That may or may not have been what he was aiming for."

Potter paused and turned his head to stare at Draco. Draco stared back. The day he backed down from the darkness in Potter's eyes was the day he killed himself. He had used that mind-reading potion in the first place to connect himself with Potter, and so he had to stand in the way.

"You're right," Potter said, and then turned his head and began passing his wand over the riverbank again, murmuring to himself.

Draco closed his eyes, not sure what shook him more: the contact with a moment when Potter was possibly willing to lash out and fuck the consequences, or Potter's acknowledgment that Draco was right.


	17. In Circles

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Seventeen—In Circles_

They had left the river. They had gone back to Malfoy's flat, because he had said he had books there that contained images of the branching patterns Galen of no last name had used, images like the ones on the ring. He was virtually certain that that was what they were, but he wouldn't be completely certain until he had checked.

Harry knew that. Of course he knew. He and Ron proceeded on most cases the same way, getting the evidence checked and substances analyzed by Potions masters and Healers who could tell them about wounds. Most of the time, Harry made his final mad charges either during the moments when they were dealing with humans—witnesses or criminals—or during the battles that resulted in captures.

_Sometimes in captures._

He sat on a chair in Malfoy's flat, his head tilted back, his eyes closed, pretending to be asleep. Ron really was, napping like the soldier that Aurors were supposed to resemble a lot of the time and Ron was more than Harry was. Malfoy stood over yet another book that didn't tell him what he wanted to know, from the way his fingers rapped the table it was spread out on. His lips rolled up into a frown that Harry didn't think he would display if he knew he was the target of observation.

He was so deep in the books, in fact, that Harry doubted he was paying attention to the bond that the mind-control potion created between them, or he would have reacted, by now, to the ideas rippling through the back of Harry's thoughts.

He knew two Dark spells that would get them the information they needed. One stood a chance of destroying the ring, but was undetectable outside the four warded walls of the flat. The other would leave the ring intact, but bring the Ministry down on them if they found any trace of it.

He was fighting the temptation to use one or the other of them.

And Harry knew people said that phrase and didn't mean anything in particular by it, but for him, it was real. He _was _fighting, engaging some strong dark part of himself in constant rolling and plunging and churning in the back of his mind. He was wrestling in waist-deep water, water that ran deeper and swifter and colder than the little stream where the kidnappers had taken Emily Steele had ever dreamed of running.

He could do it. He knew he was faster with his wand than Malfoy. Malfoy had no potions nearby at the moment—Harry had checked the lines of his pockets and sleeves, letting his eyes run back and forth under drooping lids—and he didn't know as many spells as Harry. _No one _knew as many spells as Harry, because he had made up enough to become dangerous.

But Malfoy had asked him not to. He had explained the dangers to their investigation. So had Ron. Harry had promised. He could picture the way their faces would change when he did this, and they might cut him out of the investigation altogether, which meant he would have taken the risk that the Ministry would find them and broken his promise for nothing…

The tail of the great dark beast strayed around his legs, between them. Harry jerked his head backwards with a snarl and braced himself against its thrashing in the water, while all the time keeping his exterior bland and asleep. He'd had a lot of practice at that, really. All those meetings when someone proposed something that enraged him, all those times he'd wanted to kill a prisoner and brought them in alive instead, all the times that he'd hoped to save the victim and found a bloody scrap of human skin on the floor and hair on the chains and scabs on the cuffs…

He stood there, and he fought. And in the end, he pushed the beast-like part of himself back under the water and drowned it. He imagined the way it would die, the bubbles drifting up past its nose, the tail clapping once against the surface and then hanging limp. He forced the restless energy through the image, and relaxed in the end instead of pretending at it.

And in the silence, he heard Malfoy's voice say, "I wondered if you could subdue the impulses. Well done."

Harry opened his eyes and turned his head, feeling oddly as if he were turning to meet his fate.

* * *

Draco looked at Potter from behind the table, and wondered why he had thought Draco so thoroughly distracted by his research that he would risk such a struggle. The impulses in the back of Draco's mind had changed the moment the fight began, of course, and he had stood silent, listening to them, keeping his eyes blinking and his fingers moving in his own version of Potter's contrast of still body and tense mind.

Then he had felt Potter sway against the swirling darkness, against the thoughts that said _Cast. Kill. Find. Destroy_, and come back to himself. He would have said nothing, only moved, if Potter had decided to cast one of the spells. But Potter had won against himself, which meant Draco would speak.

Potter moved with slow deliberation after a moment, hooking his legs over one another and tilting his fingers together. Draco had a sudden surreal vision of him receiving delegates from other countries that way. A few came every month, the lower-ranking entourage of ambassadors who would meet with the Minister, and they always wanted to meet the famous Harry Potter.

_He'd entertain them, _Draco thought, with a certainty as heavy and dark as hematite. _He'd bow and smile and flatter them, and tell the acceptable war stories, the ones that have worn out in the telling from being repeated in the papers each anniversary of the victory. And then he'd come back home, and no one would ever guess that someone who could kill them all in six seconds was walking among them._

"I wonder why you're like this," he said softly. "The day you first came to me about the vision, before you arrested Campion, you weren't."

Potter shifted to the side, restless as a fire, and the impulse in the back of Draco's mind that said _Hide if you can _was less disturbing with how he felt also revealed on his body. "Yes," he said. "But in the days between, I used the Retrovoyance curse."

Draco paused. "I know the effects of the Retrovoyance curse," he said.

"Do you?" Potter raised his eyebrows and leaned forwards, the impulses in the back of his mind stifled to a soft murmur of waters again. "You've studied it, I suppose."

"Yes, of course," Draco said. "How else would I know what it is?"

"There's a difference between the sort of knowledge that one picks up of Dark spells in general, and knowing much about this," Potter said. "You know that it brings back the screams of the dead? The last memories of the dead? The promise of vengeance?" His eyes were the color of jade cooled in black blood. "That you can feel the pain of their last moments, exactly as if you were there? Well, I felt the pain of a girl with her face scraped off. If I've been—erratic—that's one of the reasons. But not the only one," he added after a moment. "Some of it really is just the way I've always been."

Draco leaned one hand on the table, and hoped that it didn't look as if he was bracing himself against the sort of storm-surge that Potter had faced when he was fighting down his wish to cast a Dark spell. "I've heard of most of that," he said. "But not the physical sensations. It rarely achieves that. You felt everything she did."

"Oh, yes," Potter said, and his voice became a soft sound that would have made Draco run away if he heard it behind him in Diagon Alley some dark night. "She lives in my head. It's the next best thing to having a ghost there."

"You have madness on a leash, then," Draco said, and shook his head. "Perhaps I should be surprised at the existence of the leash, rather than that it's short."

Potter half-bowed his head. "I appreciate what you've done for me," he said, voice still raw, but one that Draco wouldn't have run away from now. "I—could not have controlled myself at some junctures if not for your first potion, and I believe the second one has been useful as well."

"For me, not you," Draco said. He hesitated, but Potter stared at him, and the impulses in the back of his head were flowing in longer thoughts, less easy to understand than the single-word ones, if more reassuring. "I had thought—rumors since the war said you fought for your freedom against the Ministry. Subtly, but you still got to do things that you wanted to more often than not, and persuaded people that they should pay attention to you. You could control yourself."

"Oh, yes, that," Potter said, with a flutter of one hand. The chattering in Draco's head was barely distinguishable from the chatter of a stream now. "But there's a difference between freedom that matters and freedom that doesn't."

"Tell me the difference." Draco moved around the table and leaned one hip on it, keeping his hand on the book as a connection with the research. If Weasley woke up, it would not do for him to think that Potter and Draco had been gossiping this time away, with nothing productive to show for it.

"The freedom that matters is the freedom to save people," Potter said. "To do my job. To fight for what I believe is right. The freedom that doesn't matter is—calls on my time. Luxuries, like sleeping late. Other luxuries, like having the normal life that I once craved and which I know I won't get, now." He stared at Draco, and his eyes were as bright as stars shining through dusk. "The job is what matters."

Draco stood there for a moment. Then he said, "Selfishness and selflessness are so twisted in you that I don't think one can separate them."

Potter shrugged. "I stopped worrying about questions like that a long time ago, because they're philosophical and I can't answer them."

"You don't want to answer them."

"I'm not intelligent enough to." Potter's teeth flashed briefly. Draco had never seen an expression more perfectly balanced between a snarl and a smile. "I'm not known for great and shining brilliance, you know, or I never would have used the Retrovoyance curse. I would have looked it up, found out what it did to you, and chosen some other spell that would let me discover the truth."

Draco cocked his head. Perhaps here lay a way out of the tangle that was Potter. "You acknowledge it would have been better to choose some other spell that affected your mind less?"

"Of course," Potter said, and the impulse in the back of Draco's mind said, _Think this is strange. _"I know now what it did to me. With a clearer mind, I might have been able to make more progress in the case."

"And all you care about is your job," Draco said, suppressing the impulse to clench his hand into a fist and drum it on the table. It would be stupid to do so, when it would probably wake Weasley up, and he didn't have the right to react like that to an announcement of Potter's anyway. "Nothing else. Nothing that could—nothing else that could change things, or make a difference."

Potter blinked. "Most successful Aurors care a great deal about their jobs," he said. "Ron is good, too, in some respects better than me, and you know he thinks about it a lot. You couldn't have worked together if he didn't, if he still thought that—oh—you being a snotty pure-blood of a Slytherin was more important than investigating the case or springing me from the cell. Thank you for that, by the way. I did say thank you, didn't I?" he added.

Draco licked his lips. Perhaps he shouldn't, but he could feel the muscles in his shoulders bunching when Potter was like this, when he said or did something that made him, for a moment, more accessible. More human. Not a beast, not a machine. Just a man.

"I think you may have," he said gravely. "But—Potter, Weasley has a wife. He has a life outside the Aurors, one that he can flow back and forth to when he needs to, and then restore himself before he returns to work. What do you have? I don't believe most of the rumors in the _Prophet _about you dating someone."

Potter shrugged. "Good. You shouldn't."

Draco waited, and then clenched his teeth and his hands, even the one that he had kept in contact with the book in case Weasley woke up. "So tell me what you have, Potter," he said. "If you think that I'm unworthy of being granted even that small measure of trust—"

"I have no one to date," Potter said. "No one for a long time. Some people have looked promising, but I haven't found one yet." He shrugged again, and looked as calm as though he was one of those Muggle religious statues they put on top of tombs. "Someday, when I can find the right person and I have the time, I'll have a family. But there's no reason to rush. I might live for a hundred years yet."

"When will you have the time?" Draco asked.

"Someday." Potter glanced at him and turned the attack back on him, as the impulses in the back of Draco's mind said, _Question. _"And what about you? You have the money and the space and the time to have someone if you wanted. I don't suppose you do?"

"That's true," Draco said. "But I also don't spend all my days brewing. I still have friends, and I attend meetings that have to do with brewing, and I teach my assistants. I don't think you have a life outside your job."

"So be it," said Potter, still not turning a hair.

"You _should_," Draco said.

* * *

_What is this, the Get-Harry-Potter-A-Life Day?_

Harry shook his head. He couldn't believe Malfoy was really that stupid. He had better things to worry about than Harry's dating life. He was only trying to make conversation, and perhaps understand something that had puzzled him.

_It's a long time since you've assigned motives that neutral to anyone._

Harry snorted. He didn't have to listen to the cluttered chaos of his own mind, either, if he didn't want to. The only person in the room he owed a response to, as long as Ron was asleep, was Malfoy.

And that was more of a relief than it should be, to know that he wasn't alone in his own head. He wanted the end of this case with a longing as hot and hard as revenge itself, but perhaps part of him would mourn it, to find Malfoy's departure coming with that end.

_No need to think about that, yet, when we're still in the middle of it and a long way from the end, _he thought, and pushed the disturbing part of his mind into a secure case that he locked after it. "While I'm using spells like the Retrovoyance curse on myself," he answered, still mild, since it seemed to be the best way to make Malfoy actually respond, "then it's hardly a good idea for me to find someone else. What would happen if I lashed out and destroyed them in a fit of violence?"

Malfoy's eyes narrowed. Harry smiled back. He could almost see the man running the argument through his head, and coming up with the fact that _he _had told Harry himself his use of Dark Arts could make him dangerous to others. He could hardly go back on that now and insist it wouldn't matter.

But he tried to argue, because he was Malfoy, and that was one of the things he lived to do. "When you're past that moment. When the contamination of the curse begins to fade and the ghost in your head is satisfied."

Harry shrugged. "Maybe. It depends on a lot of things. What other cases are coming up next. Whether Ron and Hermione have that baby they're talking about. He might need to miss some work for that, and he'd need me to cover for him. And the Ministry sometimes wants me to do several festivals or openings or appearances in a month. That doesn't leave much time for going on dates."

"It could if you would _make _time," Malfoy said, and leaned forwards, as if to loom over Harry. It was a long time since Harry had allowed anyone else to loom over him, so he ended up watching in polite interest. Malfoy rolled his eyes and hissed, and dug in with renewed vigor. "You've fought for your freedom in subtle ways, Potter, and still left the Ministry convinced that you're its most faithful servant. You could fight for the freedom to go on dates if you wanted to."

"If I wanted to," Harry echoed.

Malfoy paused, and then turned back to his book. Harry watched his back for a moment, and then nodded. He reckoned the conversation had put Malfoy off or annoyed him for some reason. Well, he would leave him alone to read and research, and Harry would close his eyes and go over the inscriptions on the ring and the footprints on the riverbank and the site of the houses and what he had heard Schroeder and Campion say again, in case there was a clue lurking there that he had missed.

Or perhaps he would join Ron in slumber. Sometimes that was the best thing to do, when one's mind was racing in useless directions. At least he knew he could do something productive for his own mind if he was asleep, if not for anyone else.

* * *

_This is not the Potter I knew in school. I would have sworn that one wanted a family before anything else, except perhaps to remain friends with the Weasel and the Mudblood._

Draco shook his head and bent over the book. He had spent too much time tonight thinking over Potter's love life already. He had to concentrate on finding the exact patterns that covered the ring. He had seen similar ones in the books he had that reproduced Galen's research, but he wanted the identical ones. He couldn't know what their purpose was if they weren't exactly identical.

He did manage to eliminate a few patterns that looked much the same but had a different number of prongs or thorns, or reached in different directions, but then Potter distracted him again.

It was nothing physical he was doing this time—when Draco glanced at him, he was leaning his head on the back of the chair and resting his hands on his knees, his breathing light and easy—but, once again, his mind. Draco could feel the small ripples of the stream running back on each other, colliding and lashing into one another, producing longer thoughts that shared words but blended into new ones along the way.

_The ring? The ring is the key. Why leave it there? Leave it there and trap someone. Why there? What was there, besides Muggle—Muggles? But no, Schroeder despises—Moonstone despises—what is it—_

Draco rolled his eyes and faced the book again. He reckoned he should be glad that Potter's thoughts weren't only one word long anymore; it seemed less likely now that he would march over a cliff at any moment. But at the same time, he couldn't hear everything, even with the longer form of Potter's thoughts. He heard only half, the unconscious half, the impulses and the momentary desires. He didn't know what Potter was _thinking_, what plans he was turning over or what structures of logic he might put together.

_Well, good. You should be alone in your own head some of the time._

Draco nodded, and finally managed to chase out the thought of listening to all of Potter's mind by reminding himself that that would mean listening to constant, careless chatter about the Weasels. And with that, he focused on the book in front of him.

* * *

Harry went over the conclusion he had drawn, one time and then another, slowly and carefully looking for places that it might bristle around him and trip him up.

_No. That could be the reason. We don't have any evidence that it is, yet, but it could be. _

He knew Moonstone and Schroeder both despised Muggles. And they had had Campion on hand to kidnap Muggle children they thought wouldn't be missed and introduce them to the people who had tortured and killed and _tortured—_

Harry paused to wait until the ghost's call had died down in the back of his mind. He realized that the soft sound of Malfoy turning pages had stopped. He sighed and sent a silent apology, although he had no idea if Malfoy would feel it, and then returned to consideration of the facts as he knew them.

Moonstone and Schroeder's plan—assuming they were right about what that plan was in the first place—required contacts in both the Muggle and magical worlds. They would have to have someone to take children like Emily Steele, and people on hand to snatch Muggle children. Harry wondered for a moment why they would use children instead of adults, and then snorted. It made too much sense on every level, from the fact that the children wouldn't be able to give evidence as clearly as adults to the fact that they couldn't fight.

He locked his muscles against the surge of rage and went back to considering the evidence again.

Schroeder and Moonstone were working with Muggles. They had to be. Perhaps Campion had done the actual taking of children not watched by their parents, but it made sense that someone would occasionally find those children, herd them in the right direction, or cover up for any mistakes Campion made. (Harry couldn't personally imagine Campion going a single day without making _some _mistake, but perhaps he was biased by the way he had arrested the green little bastard).

So there was another possible lead, another way they could start. Perhaps they didn't dare approach Moonstone or Schroeder or anyone in their employ right now, but they might be able to find the Muggles. And unless the Muggles had magical defenses that Moonstone and Schroeder had given them, there must be some way to trick the truth out of them with magic.

Harry smiled. He didn't yet know where to start—

No, he did. Why take Emily Steele to that cluster of houses unless there was someone there to meet them? The wizards, according to the spell Harry had used that made their footprints appear, had walked through a river and then vanished. No reason to expect to find a wizarding child there. No reason to linger simply to bury a ring that would only be useful in the first place if someone managed to find out what they were doing and track them.

Someone must live in those Muggle houses who knew something. Or someone _had _lived there; Emily Steele had been kidnapped several months ago, after all.

Harry opened his eyes, smiling, and met Malfoy's gaze. What he saw there made him stand at once, drop the smile, and move over to Malfoy's side.

"What is it?" he murmured.

Malfoy spread the book out, and stabbed a finger at the page. Harry obediently bent down and scanned it.

He recognized the branching figures as the ones on the ring, or at least ones that looked like them. Then he looked at the caption under the picture.

_Based on divergent and further research, it is now believed that Galen would never have achieved his goal of allowing adult wizards to hold the power he planned to take from others. But with a pattern such as this, he believed, children might hold it…and become, overwhelmed by the sudden existence of a new magical core, little more than mindless tools for the guiding hand of a master._


	18. In the Search

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Eighteen—In the Search_

Draco leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. The back of his mind was nothing but lightning and black cloud, and the roar of distant waves.

He had needed that information about what Moonstone and Schroeder—if they were the ones behind everything concerning the Muggle children—were doing. But he could have wished it undiscovered, if only because of the agitation it had caused Potter.

He paced through Draco's kitchen at the moment with no concern for the lateness of the hour or Draco's exhaustion. His face was flat, almost peaceful, but Draco had seen him truly relaxed this evening, and would not mistake one state for the other again. His hands were locked together behind his back, but they twisted through each other, fingernails rustling and scraping, then driving into unshielded skin. Draco felt distant echoes of the pain in Potter's mind through the potions bond, although not as if it had happened to his own body. Instead, Potter felt the tiny pricks and added them to his dream of vengeance against the murderers.

_Or conquerors, _Draco added, in the back of his own mind. They had conquered a problem, if they had, that had baffled many of the greatest Dark wizards in history. How to take magic from one body and make another accept it.

Of course, the price was too high. Draco quite agreed with Potter on that. The Muggles would eventually notice the disappearance of their children, especially if Moonstone and Schroeder succeeded and stepped up their kidnapping. That could lead to disastrous results for the wizarding world. It would be best if the separation between the worlds was maintained as far as possible.

But Potter, with his notions of saving the innocent and preserving freedom for others, if not himself…

A single thought emerged like a rock rising from the sea in the back of Potter's mind. The waves parted around it, and it gleamed when Draco closed his eyes, silver and black as the blade of an obsidian knife in the light.

_Revenge._

"You fought the beast down earlier, Potter," Draco said, his eyes still closed. He would begin this confrontation with softness, not a stare, and see if that made any difference. "Will you let it free now?"

"I can hunt them down and kill them without using Dark Arts." Potter's voice had a sleepy tone to it. So an alligator might look sleepy, in the moment before it lunged and snapped the leg off a deer.

"You might use other spells that are as dangerous, and ones that would allow the Ministry to track us," Draco said, and slumped further in the chair. Keep his hand away from potions and wand; look unthreatening. Someday he might not be able to control Potter through the methods he had used so far, and he wanted to make sure that he had others. "Some of the spells you created. How much power do they give off?"

"What do you mean?" Potter snapped, and Draco knew that Potter had come to a halt in front of his chair. The rock was closer, the roar of the waves louder, the soft snarl of magic a rumbling growl by now. "The Ministry has wards to detect the Dark Arts, but they don't have any that are going to tell them about my spells, because they're new. You can't track something you don't know exists."

Draco snorted, and did open his eyes now. Better for him as well if he was able to meet Potter's gaze head-on, and show that he was not afraid of anything Potter might do in his slightly madder moments. "You really think that? The Ministry also has wards that track the magical power most spells give off as they're cast, Harry." The use of his name jolted Potter back on his heels, and let Draco rise from the chair and face him without making it seem as if he were starting to his feet out of fear. "The power sends flickers—you might think of them like the sparks from a fire—through the air. Now, most of the time, such wards aren't active, because constantly detecting all the common household cleaning charms in England and the Healing spells at St. Mungo's would be a waste of the Ministry's time and effort. But they would find a powerful spell, and if it was one they didn't recognize, they would send Aurors. For something like that, they always have time."

"I never heard of wards like that," Potter snapped, and ran a hand through his hair. Draco felt his hand twitch, and had to dart a look through the kitchen door at Weasley, still asleep in the chair in the other room, to restrain himself. It was a miracle that Weasley hadn't yet woken up through all of Potter's ranting; with Draco's luck, he would wake in the _one _moment Draco was trying to smooth Potter's hair down. "Why wouldn't they tell me about them? I was an Auror, after all."

Draco shook his head. "So it comes down to this. The Ministry manipulated you as much as it manipulated anyone else, Potter. If they didn't assign you to a case like that, then it means that they thought you'd be more valuable on cases like tracking known Dark wizards and finding kidnapping victims. And you _are, _aren't you? Your temper drags you on like a chain. You're pushed into doing so much more for the Ministry than you would on your own."

"That's not true," Potter said, but his voice flickered and wavered like the spells Draco had been describing.

"They choose to put you where you can do the most good," Draco said. "You could argue that, because you are _good _at what you do. But you're also dangerously unrestrained at what you do. The Ministry won't use you for delicate operations that involve what could be seen—what someone who was a Gryffindor could see, for example—as efforts at subjection."

Potter whirled away from him and faced the far wall. Draco was reminded of a Muggle clockwork toy come to life, described in one of his wizarding children's books. He smiled and braced his chin on his fist, waiting.

Potter had yielded more than once to Draco's good sense, including accepting the bond the second potion had forced on him. He would yield again, Draco was sure, if Draco only had the patience to wait and see what happened.

* * *

_How dare he sit there and tell me that I'm a loose weapon, charging around at all hours, not to be trusted—_

_ Because that's what you are. To him. What reason have you given him to think differently? Twice tonight you've already come near to doing something that would have damaged him, or Ron, or put them in danger._

Harry closed his eyes and began to pull himself inwards, a meditation technique he had learned in Auror training. He hated feeling this way, this constant storm of emotions, spiraling out of control and drowning humor and gentleness and common sense until he could see nothing clearly. If he had an enemy in front of him, it wasn't so bad, because he could strike out and repay the debts that the enemy may have accrued. But without one, his body twitched, his muscles ached from the force of containing his mind, and his mind hurt from the force of shattering itself against his barriers.

The sea could go on striking rock forever without any impact or pain at all, but Harry was not the sea. He concentrated so hard that he could feel one of his teeth crack, and loosened his tongue from behind his clenched jaw to tap it. A minor hurt. He could fix it with a healing spell tonight, if he had the clarity of mind to do so.

Slowly, the maelstrom he pictured in his mind, rotating and greedily sucking up the emotions that dominated him, spun itself into nothingness. Harry leaned one hand against the kitchen door and made himself feel the texture of wood against his palm, the smooth ripples that threaded through it, the grain here and there that might have come from a tree in its prime or a young one; Harry really wouldn't know.

He opened his eyes and turned to face Malfoy, making himself take a chair across the kitchen table from him. Malfoy watched him with raised eyebrows. He was beautiful in the light like this, Harry realized suddenly, his face stark and sharp—but Harry relished things like that, because he liked weapons. Malfoy's fingers curled as if he thought about reaching into a pocket for a potion, but Harry shook his head and held up his hand. He wondered if Malfoy had heard the thought he'd just had, but decided it didn't matter. Malfoy was too intelligent to feel flattered by the desire of someone like _Harry._

"All right," he said. "Thank you for being the voice of reason. Now. What do you think we should do with this information?"

* * *

_What happens the day that he can't hold the storm back anymore? _

Draco shuddered, and tried not to let the thought show on his face, because for all he knew Potter had some telepathic means of picking up on such things, lack of a potions bond flowing his way or not. Draco had certainly picked up on some…interesting thoughts during the last few minutes when Potter was trying to tame his storm.

"We should leave everything until tomorrow," he said. "It's already late at night. We'll get nothing done now if we rush off and try to make decisions on the spur of the moment."

Potter looked into his face. Draco had felt weighed and judged by those green eyes before, but it had never seemed to matter as it did now, with Potter studying him and Draco clenching his hands into the table so that he wouldn't flinch away.

Potter turned his head in the other direction and shrugged, at last. "Fine," he said. "I'll wake Ron, and we'll go." He started to stand.

"How do you deal with it on a day-by-day basis?" Draco burst out. The question escaped his careful control before he could think about it with the consideration it deserved, like a rat escaping from the cage where it was destined to become Potions ingredients. "It must—how can you handle that rage? You would need something more than the potion I used to connect myself to your mind, because you don't have that all the time. How do you do it?"

"I thought I told you," Potter said. "The Retrovoyance curse exaggerated the effects—"

"Come off it," Draco said, and rose to his feet, shoving his chair back from the table hard enough to make the legs scrape on the floor and wring an annoyed-sounding moan from Weasley in the other room. "I know you've used the curse more than once. How did you deal with these emotions then?"

Potter studied him through fathomless eyes for a moment, and then said, "You're right. Sometimes I could unleash my fury on the criminals who had done this immediately. Other times I worked the case day and night, and used the energy that way. Sometimes I cast spells in one of the Aurors' practice rooms." He hesitated.

"And other times?" Draco leaned forwards. His breath came fast, as though poised on the edge of a cliff. His head danced with a dizziness greater than vertigo would cause.

"Once," Potter said softly, "I found a Muggle girl who was feeling the same way I was, and we fucked each other senseless." He shrugged. "I don't have anyone who I could do that with on a regular basis, though. As you've pointed out."

"Little talent and less sense," Draco told the wall of the kitchen. "To expose a _Muggle _to that? I'm surprised that they haven't created brand-new clauses in the Statute of Secrecy simply for your sake."

Potter gave him a faint, twisted smile, and nodded. "All right. We've spent long enough talking about why the Ministry wouldn't trust me with something like this, how stupid I am, and how I shouldn't have brought Muggles into this to begin with. Is there something else that you would like to say to me, or can we get on with the course of deciding what we're going to do with the information?"

Draco opened his mouth. There were _so many _things he wanted to do, things he wanted to say—

And he could find no reason, looking at Potter's calm, closed expression, to say any of them. Of course not. He had asked questions, and Potter had answered them. But they had possible information on the case that was more important than any of the half-asked questions in Draco's head, more important even than the thought that had flickered and darted through Potter's head when he looked at Draco, something about beauty.

He sat down and looked into the drawing room. "Do you want to wake Weasley up?"

"Of course," Potter said, and leaned sideways and said in a careful, piercing tone, "You're wanted, Ron."

Weasley opened his eyes in a single second, and gave Potter a startling smile. Draco found himself grinding his teeth for no reason, and sat still until Weasley stretched and yawned and mumbled away his sleep, and came to join them at the kitchen table.

When his hands were wrapped around a mug of tea, Draco began, carefully avoiding Potter's eyes. He could say it was to watch Weasley, to fill him in on the information that Potter might keep from him through sheer carelessness, but he knew it wasn't.

Weasley didn't know that, though, and there might be no reason for Potter to know it, either, when he lacked the link to Draco's mind that a potion applied the other way would have given him. Draco buried his own churning emotions in the work, deciding that he could borrow one of Potter's techniques after all.

* * *

Harry glanced down at the list in his hand and sighed as if disconsolate. He was wearing the guise of a Potions master, a thick, hooded robe, with the glamour of a considerably older man's face underneath it. And he was walking slowly down the center of Knockturn Alley, continually looking up from the paper in his hand and scanning the numbers of the houses and shops on either side of the street.

The normal denizens of the alley watched him, but didn't come near him. Harry didn't think that they sensed he was really an Auror; the robe carried enchantments that forced Harry to walk with shorter steps than he usually employed, and the glamour came from a potion and would not fade in an hour like Polyjuice. Instead, they wanted to know yet if he was victim, predator, or absurdly short-sighted newcomer who would become the first very shortly.

_There it is._

Harry felt the blood in his veins shout and sing, but he kept his head bowed and his steps wandering and weak, his voice a querulous murmur. Yes, he had seen the gold 66 above the shop on the right and a few meters down, but that didn't mean he wanted to reveal his destination. He came to a stop, in fact, squinted, and turned the paper he held completely upside-down.

"Help you, sir?"

It seemed the first few words of the sentence had been swallowed by the gulping, snapping mouth of the man in front of him. Harry thought he looked like an anglerfish, though perhaps that was an insult to that efficient predator. This man had enough grime under his fingernails and enough hunger in his eyes to show he didn't catch his prey that often.

"It depends," said Harry, and let his own words fade away at the end of the announcement. He straightened his sheet with a final sigh and handed it around to the man. "Can you tell me where Master Eelhard's shop is? Or is that Eelhardt?" he added, and coughed. "I'm _sure _I don't know."

The man didn't bother looking at the sheet, precise directions charmed to look like imprecise ones. He watched Harry's face instead, and his shoulders lifted and then fell. "You _would _be for the Eel, wouldn't you?" he mumbled piteously. "Always takes clients away from the honest ones, he does."

"You have the skin of a starfish flayed at the new moon?" Harry let his voice pick up, and leaned forwards.

The man in front of him darted backwards, not letting the shadow of the hood fall over him. Harry relaxed one muscle in his back, which wouldn't show under the robe. _Good. _The man obviously took Harry for someone he shouldn't challenge. Not seriously, at least. That would save Harry a bit of expectation when it came to escaping.

"Not me, not me," the man said, and rubbed his chin, which had stubble of so iron a grey that Harry had taken it for a metallic decoration at first. "But it might be I know someone who does. Could you wait?"

Harry gave a mournful little sound and shook his head. "Not today. Not past today. Must have it today." And he turned and glanced forlornly up and down the alley again.

No one was looking at him now. Whether they assumed he would find what he needed with the man who had claimed his attention or they didn't have starfish skins to sell, Harry didn't know. He only cared that there were no eyes on him except that of the anglerfish, who was now doing his best attempt at a wise and knowing look.

Harry drew his wand, but kept in concealed in his sleeve. "And you can't point me to Master Eelhardt?" he whined one more time.

"You could wait one day," the man said. "Wait one more day and I'll have it at half the price the Old Eel would sell it for, how about that?"

Harry sighed to the point that he thought he'd get light-headed from all the air he was expelling. "No," he said. "I don't have a choice. I have to have the skin of a starfish flayed at the new moon, and I have to have it now."

The anglerfish stepped back from him, and then went, looking back over his shoulder, as though he imagined Harry would change his mind and scramble wildly after him when he saw his chance at a cheaper skin escaping. Since the skin was not really what Harry had come for, he remained still, and the man vanished around a corner into Diagon Alley in the next moment.

Harry turned—

And saw Eelhardt in the door of his shop, beneath his gleaming golden numbers, waiting for him.

There was no doubt that it really was Eelhardt, Harry thought. Malfoy had described him as having a face that an elephant had stepped on, and that was an accurate description. Splayed forehead, wide and melancholy grey eyes, fingers that picked and tore and picked again at the thick cloth of his robe, and a chin that went on forever until it disappeared into a straggling beard—it was all there.

"The skin of a starfish flayed at the new moon," Harry said, and focused on him, though when Eelhardt tried to look into his hood, Harry took a step back. "You have it?"

The man surveyed him with the gloom of a thousand centuries for a few minutes, and then nodded and turned to vanish back into the shop. Lack of a definite invitation or not, Harry followed him. He was getting tired of standing around in Knockturn Alley, but controlled his impatience with a small jerk inside his mind and nothing more. If Malfoy was right, they could find a true lead on the case here, and he wouldn't do anything to endanger that, not when he had already held himself back so far.

The shop was dark inside, a darkness that seemed to come from more than the lack of light and the gloomy brown wood of the walls. There was smoke here too, and grime, and an atmosphere of lost hope. Eelhardt stumped his way over to the counter that stretched across the room except for a short gap facing the door, and crossed behind it, and sat down and stared at Harry. Harry lifted an eyebrow and came close enough that he could listen to Eelhardt whisper if he needed to.

"I have the skin," Eelhardt said. "But I need to know who told you about it. Not many people know."

_Know the code word, _Harry thought, with a faint smile that Eelhardt wouldn't have been able to see even if he had peered under the hood. The skin of a starfish flayed at the new moon was a code word begging certain privileges from the apothecaries attuned to it, not a real ingredient. Malfoy had been the one who told Harry to come here, and given him the password, and warned him that Eelhardt had no particular reason to trust someone Malfoy sent, but even less reason to trust the Aurors.

"His name is Malfoy," he said, and watched Eelhardt's eyes bulge in and out for a moment, and dark little things that could have been the ghosts of starfish dart back and forth in them.

"He is—not my best customer," Eelhardt said, carefully turning over a glass vial on the counter in front of him. Harry was aware of the shimmer of power from the corner of his eye, and how the turning of the vial cast a web of silence in front of the door. Well, that was fine. He had enough power to escape if he needed to, but he didn't think Eelhardt would try and do him harm, given the expression on his face. "I find it hard to imagine he would mention that ingredient unless he had a reason."

"And I have the reason," Harry said, and added the rattling hiss of breath at the end of the words simply to disguise, as much as possible, his voice in case Eelhardt ever tried to remember where he had heard it. "I need to find a way to transfer, and hold, as much magic as possible." He pushed a piece of parchment across the counter. It contained a drawing of the inscriptions from the ring, the ones that Malfoy had found in his book on Galen and which he said were used to control children.

For a moment, Eelhardt sat still. Then he looked up, and Harry warmed to the fear in his ears. At least that proved he had not come here pursuing a phantom.

"I—cannot help you with this," Eelhardt said, articulating his words as though he imagined someone would be listening in.

"You can't?" Harry arranged his voice in earnest lines. "That's a shame. Because I know I would take more than I could hold. I want the magic only for a Healing, a simple Healing, the smallest Healing in the world." He reached out and put his hand on top of the parchment, beginning to pull it gently backwards. "I could share the rewards for someone who helped me."

Eelhardt hesitated, then shook his head. "I cannot," he said. "The information is not mine to give or withhold." But he hadn't taken his eyes from the parchment. "But since you know so much already…"

"Yes?" Harry leaned in and made his voice as coaxing as he could.

"I could take a message."

_To Moonstone and Schroeder, or whoever else is behind this. _

Harry swallowed a savage mixture of bile and fire, and smiled at the apothecary. "That would be acceptable."


	19. In Too Deep

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Nineteen—In Too Deep_

"What do you have for me?"

Potter's voice, coming through the charm that connected Draco's ears to his, was deep and soft, unlike the voice that he used when he spoke to Draco and Weasley. Draco shook his head, feeling his hair rustle against the couch on which he lay, but not hearing it. For the moment, his listening skills were completely overlaid by the reality that Potter was experiencing. Weasley was with him, guarding the door of the shop under a glamour, with the rumor that Draco was ill and couldn't attend to business right now. He had orders to send up a flare of sparks that Draco would see, not hear, if he encountered trouble.

Draco didn't think he would. At the moment, Potter was the one in danger, the one in his second meeting with Eelhardt, where the apothecary had promised to introduce him to some of those who could answer his questions about the branching patterns on the ring.

"Not as much information as you requested," said Eelhardt's voice, as sliding and slippery and blood-warmed as his surname, and Draco curled his lip without thinking about it. He didn't get along well with Eelhardt for a variety of reasons, but the way he sounded when he tried to defend his pet Potions theories had a lot to do with it. "My allies are very close-mouthed. Not just everyone can share in the revolutionary nature of this knowledge, you know."

"Yes, I know," Potter said. At the same moment, the impulses in the back of his head chanted in Draco's mind, _Kill him if necessary. _Draco clenched a hand open and shut on the couch, and reminded himself that at least the thoughts were longer than one word right now. "But if someone can help me soon, so that I can do the Healing—"

"You must be patient," Eelhardt said, in the tone that Slughorn had sometimes used to scold the Slytherins.

Potter settled back. Draco could feel him breathing, schooling himself into stillness. He didn't know how much of that was for Eelhardt's benefit and how much for Potter's own, and wished he had insisted on the potion that would bind all his senses to Potter's. He wanted to see the expression on his face—

_Which you couldn't do with that potion anyway, idiot, because it would only show you what Potter is looking at, not the expression on his face. He can't see his own face unless he's looking into a mirror._

It wasn't beyond the realm of possibility that Eelhardt would have a mirror, but Draco had to take a few more deep breaths and will himself into calmness. Potter's thoughts were settling at the same time, which helped. He concentrated on matching the current of his mind to those, and started when Potter spoke again.

"I know that you can't tell me right now, but is there a time limit? I would feel more comfortable with that, so that I know if I have to do something else to keep my daughter alive until—until the information is here."

Draco sighed. He had argued that Potter should pretend someone other than a child in his family was sick, because Moonstone and Schroeder might not trust him if they knew he had a child, but Potter had told Draco he knew what he was doing and to drop the subject. Now Draco understood. Only the idea of a child in danger could have enabled Potter to infuse his voice with that much thick, choking emotion.

"I understand that," said Eelhardt, and Draco heard a faint clicking noise that suggested the apothecary had patted Potter's hand. Draco curled his lip so hard this time it split, and he spent a few moments dabbing blood up from it while still listening to the conversation. "But you must be patient. They agreed to send a representative to the meeting today, who will evaluate you. That's not the same as agreeing to share the knowledge with you by a certain day or time."

Potter sighed softly enough to make the moon melt in pity. "All right. You're right. Of course. Thank you for helping me."

Draco rolled his eyes. _He should pretend to be this logical and calm all the time. It might get him better results than the way he runs around right now._

A door opened, bells jangled, and Eelhardt scraped his chair back and rose. He was probably scraping a bow, too, Draco thought, but he couldn't hear everything that happened around Potter through his ears, only what he noticed, and the sound of the bow might be too soft. "Master—Flowerease, thank you for coming."

Draco settled further back into the couch and smiled. He knew, though he suspected Potter didn't, that no one among pure-blood families had the name Flowerease. But there were Potions texts that gave flowerease as a very old name for the moonflower.

Moonflower. Which was almost the same as Moonstone.

"Yes," said an indifferent voice, a wind-voice, a storm-voice. "I am here." Draco had never heard Moonstone speak, but he could easily imagine that it sounded like that. From the sound of things, Potter had risen to his feet and offered a bow of his own.

Draco clenched his hand beside him again. _Make it realistic, Potter. Get over your own objections to the idea of serving someone else. Moonstone will see through you in a second if you don't. _

He might see through him anyway. When Draco had agreed that Potter should risk a second meeting with Eelhardt, he had never thought that Moonstone or Schroeder themselves might appear to confront them. On the other hand, Moonstone might feel confident enough that no one really suspected he was connected to this affair and therefore he could confront a minor Potions master who knew too much for his own good.

_Do the acting job of your life, Potter. Or it's all over._

* * *

"What did you say your name was?"

"Rosefield," Harry murmured back in return, never taking his eyes off Moonstone. He was sure it was Moonstone. He didn't know why he was sure, since this man wore a glamour, a clumsy one that rose like heat shimmers above his face. Of course, he probably thought he was so much in control here that he didn't need to wear anything more subtle.

But there was something familiar about him, about his magic, that scraped and sang across Harry's nerves. He felt himself starting to nervous attention every few seconds, and wondered if Malfoy could feel that through the impulses in his head. Perhaps so. Harry knew _he _was feeling it because some of Moonstone's magic had been used near the little girl whose memories he had taken with the Retrovoyance curse.

Whether or not he had killed her himself, Moonstone had cast some spells on her. And he might have stood by while she was tortured.

_Kill him, _the back of his mind suggested, gentle, and in his head the sobbing and wailing of Moonstone's victim arose. But Harry would not allow those impulses to control him, not here, not now. He carefully pushed them back, and sat watching Moonstone instead, his smile fixed on his face.

_I can't do that yet, sweetheart. Not yet. To get vengeance for you and all the other people abused under this system, we have to have proof._

The voice blew away like a candle snuffing out. But Harry didn't have time to think about it, because Moonstone had begun to speak again.

"How did you find out about the patterns that you showed Eelhardt, Rosefield?"

Harry would have blinked at Moonstone's arrogance, but he had seen it before. In Wizengamot members, in Head Aurors, in the Minister. All of them thought they could order other people around and those people would have no choice but to submit, because the authorities had power and the ability to deny their petitioners whatever they wanted.

Harry wondered if one reason he had always been less susceptible to manipulations like that came from the conviction of his own power. He was Harry Potter, he was powerful magically, and he had the press on his side if it came to that. He hadn't needed the cringing fear that was a tool of political survival to so many others.

But he needed to feign it now, so he bowed his head and began to murmur the story that Malfoy had come up with. "Sir, I—I found a reference in a letter I was assigned to process—"

"Where do you work, then?" Moonstone had leaned forwards and had his big hands on his knees, his eyes, blue in the glamour, locked on Harry.

"The Department of Lost Artifacts, sir," Harry said. He paused, then added, "And Rosefield isn't my real name, sir, and this isn't my real face."

Moonstone let a small smile shine on his lips. "I knew that," he said. "But your story had better be real. You know what I can do to you if I don't like it."

Harry nodded. Then he thought some downturning of his eyes and cringing of his shoulders would work wonders, since Moonstone had begun to stare at him, and might be wondering who this man was who wasn't afraid of him. "Yes, sir," he whispered. Moonstone let out a little breath and waved a hand at him to go on, so Harry rushed forwards, tripping over his own tongue at times. "I—I found a letter that had those drawings on it, and mentioned something about Healing. My daughter, sir. She's sick. She won't live much longer. The Healers tell m-me her sickness is eat-eating her magic." He closed his eyes and put a hand over his eyes, thinking about the way he would feel if Ron or Hermione or even an innocent child he didn't know was suffering that disease. "I thought I could find someone who could teach me to capture magic. If I can hold it, or if my daughter can, and that heals her magic—I can do anything, sir. Anything at all for her."

"Who sent this letter?" Moonstone asked.

Harry swallowed and looked up. "I went to make a copy of it, sir, and the only thing I could copy was the patterns. The address and the writing went illegible the moment I looked at them."

Moonstone leaned slightly back into the cushions of the dingy couch he sat on. Harry didn't nod, but he felt the relaxation spread through his body anyway. Yes, that was the way. Moonstone would know that spells to keep someone other than the intended recipient from reading a letter were common, but didn't always work perfectly on the first try, especially if the person who read the letter had a similar magical signature to the person who should have received it. Harry's story was plausible enough for a first hearing, and he intended to work with Malfoy to strengthen it later.

"The patterns led you here," Moonstone murmured, cocking his head.

Harry nodded. "Yes, sir. I'd already gone to Potions masters, hoping they could help me with potions to fend off the disease, and they were the ones who told me about someone who'd researched magic like that. Galen, I think his name was? And they were the ones who sent me to Master Eelhardt here." He cocked his head at the man beside him, who looked like he would have preferred Harry to forget about him.

"We can trace you," Moonstone said, with the idle tone of someone who was looking inwards and didn't care about what he was saying. He probably didn't, Harry thought. He was someone else who was used to power, in his case having the power to threaten someone into giving up an investigation through sheer fear. "If it turns out that you've lied to us, then we can cut the lines you opened easily enough."

Harry bowed. "I know, sir. I'm not trying to betray you. I'm willing to do whatever work I have to do to get the potions or magic or whatever it is that can help my daughter. I'll pay any price. Please."

"Any price?"

Moonstone was showing his teeth as he spoke, but his eyes and voice were both brighter. Harry knew he thought he had found a rein. Loop it around the neck of the man who promised to do anything, and you might have the man who would die for you, kill for you, fight for you without thinking of the consequences.

Harry knew that, because there had been times when he had felt that way, usually right before they raised a Potions lab or house where they could be fairly sure a Dark wizard was hiding.

"Yes, sir." Harry fixed his eyes on his hands as though too afraid to look Moonstone in the face anymore, and wondered what Malfoy was making of this conversation. Perhaps he would tell Harry that he was an idiot and not to be so stupid, but Harry didn't know, so it was best to proceed and not give away any hint that he was waiting for external input.

* * *

_You're playing a dangerous game, Potter._

Draco let out a short, huffing breath as he listened to the conversation Moonstone and Potter were having. It was true that Potter was better-suited to this role than Draco was, having more experience assuming glamours and roles, and that he might have met Moonstone before, unknowing, in some of the shadier meetings he had attended. The man was said to be extraordinarily sensitive to magical signatures, so even if Draco had only spent a few hours with him at a time, he might have recognized him.

But they hadn't known Moonstone would show up to this meeting. The real reason Draco had sent Potter was that he would have the skills necessary to fight himself out of the meeting if it turned violent, and they were less likely to suspect Potter of being out at all, considering he was supposed to be occupying a Ministry cell at the moment.

Still, Draco wished he was there.

But not all the drumming on the pillows behind his head with a closed fist would make it so, so he relaxed his body and concentrated on the voices still welling through his ears, along with clothes rustling, bodies shifting, coughs, breathing, and the other clutter of what someone with this spell functioning heard, whether he liked it or not.

* * *

"Then if I told you that there's someone who needs to be controlled," Moonstone went on, voice rich and smooth and utterly persuasive, "someone who is interfering with our ability to bring the magic-taking to fruition, you would do that? Someone you could reach easily at the moment, someone who has a reputation as fearsome but has been rendered toothless?"

Harry swallowed, because the man he played would, and spent an endless moment in contemplation of his ragged nails. Then he looked up and nodded. "If you can tell me what you mean, sir. You said controlled. Did you—did you want me to use the Imperius Curse on them?" His voice sank on the words, because his character would.

And in reality, Harry hadn't used the Unforgivable Curses since the war. They were too noticeable, especially for someone who already resented the power of his name and was looking to get him in trouble with his superiors.

"Not as such," Moonstone said, and Harry could see why people might flock to him, given how firm and bracing his voice had become. "Not as such. The Curse is illegal, and causes problems if the caster's will is not stronger than that of the victim. I do not know how strong your will is, yet."

Harry tried to firm his back and look up at Moonstone with all the speed and dignity that his character would employ, rather than the kind he would use himself. It was hard to judge, and he respected, more than he had before, the work of Aurors who spent months undercover and blended into their roles. Harry had done so for short times, not through the thousands of daily interactions that might be required. "I will try to prove that it's strong, sir. What do you want me to do?"

"You are not a Potions master yourself, Mr. Rosefield?" Moonstone changed his posture on the couch. Harry blinked and shook his head. To him, it looked like Moonstone was about to get up, but Rosefield wouldn't notice that.

"No, sir. I can buy any ingredients that you need me to, though," he added, and let his eagerness leak into his voice. "I can—I have—I still have some Galleons left. Anything for my daughter."

"Of course," Moonstone said, and his voice lowered. "Then your task will be to feed the Draught of Living Death to Harry Potter."

"Harry _Potter_, sir?" Harry let his voice squeak, because that was better than breaking out into the giggles of breathy laughter than he otherwise would have made. "But—he's a great Auror, sir! He's the Chosen One! The entire Ministry protects him!"

"I think you will find that not everyone in the Ministry appreciates him," Moonstone said, and linked his fingers together over his belly. "Besides, at the moment he's in a holding cell, pending an investigation into his recent behavior. You can reach him much more easily, and slip the Draught into his food."

More blinking and shuffling while Harry had Rosefield think it over. "But, sir," he said at last, "won't they notice the Draught? Won't they figure out what's going on and wake him up again when he falls asleep?"

"This Draught—is rather a special one," Moonstone said, and spent some more time linking his fingers together and nodding. "Rather a special one, and not one that can be easily defeated, as you will see."

_As you will see. _Harry hated the sound of that. On the other hand, he was playing a desperate man, and he was desperate, himself, to find out whether Moonstone and Schroeder were involved in the issue of kidnapping children after all and what he should do if they were. He breathed out, blinked, and squared his shoulders. "Very well, sir," he said. "If you can—if I can—if I can help that way, I will."

Moonstone regarded him for a few more minutes, smiling. Harry let himself fidget, because Rosefield would be nervous, and he kept taking his eyes away from Moonstone's to glance around the shop. It was still gloomy, but Harry could make it out a bit better now that he had spent some time inside, away from the sunlight. He could see the mirrors with discolored frames, and the cauldrons filled with what looked like scraped bits of leaves to Harry but were undoubtedly important to _someone_, and the shine, here and there, of silver instruments that had somehow escaped the tarnish.

"I am curious about you, Mr. Rosefield." Moonstone's voice drew Harry's attention back. "I have never heard of you before."

"Well, I haven't heard of you, either," Harry snapped, and then pretended to cower. That brought his hand close to his wand, which was a good thing in this situation, even if he definitely didn't intend to use it. It could comfort him and make him less likely to cast a curse in the end. "I'm sorry. I meant—I meant that I don't expect anyone to pay attention to me, and then I haven't heard of you when I talked about this magic, and—I have to trust."

"Hm," said Moonstone, ambiguously, and stood up. "You will be given instructions as to where to go, Mr. Rosefield. And the Draught that has been treated and prepared for Potter. You will understand that it is for the best that we should not meet again."

"Of course, sir," Harry said humbly, inclining his head and keeping his eyes on the floor. He could see Moonstone swishing towards the door, and felt his heart beating fiercely. Perhaps Schroeder would come to the next meeting, and Harry would even manage to discover a few hints about Campion.

Moonstone paused near the door out of the shop and glanced back at him. "There is one more thing you should know, Mr. Rosefield," he said. "One more thing you should realize that would make you a success at your mission. Or at least a better success than you can be right now," he added, correcting himself with a small, bemused smile.

Harry met his eyes, this time shaking only with feigned fear. He could go back to Malfoy and they could decide what to do about Moonstone between this meeting and the next, after all. He had nothing to fear now. "Yes, sir?" he asked.

"You should not try to project such a frightened air when your magical signature is so powerful," Moonstone said gently. "It's dishonest, impolite, and frankly inclined to make me mistrust you." He held up a hand and made a small gesture, touching his thumb and first finger together in a circle.

Disillusionment Charms Harry hadn't sensed tore open along the walls, and bulky men in dark robes poured into the room. Not Auror robes, was all Harry had time to notice before he shot to his feet and tried to Apparate. There was that much mercy, that they might not know who he was—and that because the glamour he wore came from a potion, they couldn't simply cast a _Finite _and dissipate it right there.

His magic slammed against anti-Apparition wards that he hadn't sensed going up, either, and was slung back into his body with a force that made him gasp. At the same time, the first Stunners hit him.

Harry began to slump, but managed to fight it long enough to cast two spells nonverbally: the Patronus Charm and a glamour that would somewhat disguise the distinctive stag shape of his Patronus, making it look more like an antelope than a deer. He mumbled desperately, "Moonstone taking me. Hasn't removed the glamour yet, but might manage. Magical signature—"

The Stunners took effect then, and as the Patronus bounded off through the wall and towards Ron, Harry slumped down into darkness. His last conscious thought for some time was that at least he hadn't used any Dark spells _or_ the new spells he had invented that would cast off quite a lot of magical energy for the Ministry to detect, which might inspire Moonstone to be a little less desperate.

Malfoy would be proud.

* * *

Draco's eyes snapped open, and he lay on the couch, the spell that had connected him to Potter going silent as he stopped hearing things. For a moment, his hands opened and lay there, as helpless and relaxed as his muscles.

Then Draco jerked himself to his feet and went to yet another of the potions cupboards that he kept in his flat. He knew people who would have thought that he was stupid or paranoid for keeping this many potions around, but the worth was proved now. It had kept him busy at the time, costing him nothing but labor, and now he had them when he needed them.

He closed his eyes, spent a moment calming his heartbeat and breathing so that he would sound halfway normal when he talked to Weasley, and shook his head.

_Moonstone didn't recognize his signature, but he did recognize the power of it. I wonder how long it would take them to remove the glamour? _

Ridiculous. A useless question. Draco grimaced and forced his eyes open. They knew that Moonstone had Potter, and would probably recognize him soon, and they knew how he had done it. That would have to suffice for the moment.

Relentless, he reached into his cupboard and began to draw out the weapons that he would need for going to war.


	20. In Their Hands

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twenty—In Their Hands_

Harry opened his eyes.

He had no choice, really, when there were fingers tugging at his eyelids, letting in light and pain. Harry kept his muscles relaxed as he groaned and rolled his head to the side. Reacting with violence before he saw what sort of situation he was in would just guarantee more pain.

"Rodger! He's awake."

Moonstone's glamoured face bent over him. Harry blinked and panted up at him as though his brain was still fogged, though by now he knew that he was lying on a low couch in the middle of a dark room, with a fire burning not far away and incense drifting through the room. Harry admired the incense. It was filled with essence of lilac or something similar and powerful and sweet-smelling that would keep anyone from using olfactory clues to figure out where the building was located. Wards, or real dogs, also kept up a steady sound of barking from outside. Harry had no idea whether he was in London or the Ministry or another place.

But he knew who Moonstone was, and they didn't yet know who he was, or he thought they would have mentioned his name instead of speaking of him by a pronoun. That meant he had an advantage, for as long as he could hold onto it.

He massaged his throat and swallowed, then fixed his attention on Moonstone. "Yes?" he drawled. They wouldn't expect him to act afraid, not when Moonstone had captured him in the first place because of his powerful magical signature. He thought it best to play along with expectations, at least for right now.

Moonstone smiled, or at least let the thought of a hint of a smile cross his mind, from the way his lips twitched. "Good," he said. "You can be insolent. It fits you better than the cringing persona you adopted earlier."

Harry said nothing, simply maintaining his stare and his closed mouth. Moonstone stepped back from him and began to pace from one side to the other of a beautiful carpet. Harry caught a long coil of gold in the carpet, and felt his heart clench at the unexpected good luck. If that was really a snake, as it looked like, and if the faint hum of magic he felt came from the carpet, then he might have an ally here.

"I don't recognize your signature," Moonstone said. "But it's perfectly obvious that someone set you to spy on me. You're going to tell me who it was, the Ministry or the Friends of Shadow or some other organization we don't know about yet."

Harry blinked, but kept his mouth shut. He hadn't heard of the Friends of Shadow, and wondered if he could pick up some information here that would serve him well in the future as an Auror. But he couldn't decide what was the best answer yet, not until he heard a bit more from Moonstone.

"A tough agent, then." Moonstone came to a stop and stood studying him. "Not visibly discommoded at being captured by the enemy. Someone whose first thought was escape, not fighting, which suggests training that focused on preserving his valuable magic and life." He paused, then nodded as if to someone standing out of sight behind Harry's head. "Not an Auror."

Harry made a note to himself to remember there might be someone there when he needed to move. He shrugged a little, and said nothing. Moonstone might have thrown the suggestion that he wasn't an Auror out to see his reaction, rather than believing it.

Moonstone gave him a faint smile and practically pranced closer, bending over as if he thought that he could see the truth in the bottoms of Harry's eyes or something. "Your glamour hasn't faded yet," he said softly. "Remarkable. You _have _been working with a Potions master, so that much is true. Lucas, do you recognize his work?"

"Not immediately. But I have a fairly good idea who it would be."

The man standing behind Harry's couch came into view and turned to face him. Yes. It was Schroeder. Harry controlled the immediate impulse to commit murder, and wondered if Malfoy, wherever he was, had felt the sudden spike in Harry's impulses and the way he took care of it.

_Malfoy. _Harry also wondered if the spell that let him hear through Harry's ears had been cut off when Harry fell. He didn't know, not having used that particular charm before. But he didn't know if he could count on Malfoy's aid. The most he could hope for was an independent witness to what Moonstone and Schroeder said, someone who could guide Ron when Ron came to rescue him.

_Surely Malfoy won't come himself. Not when he already spent the time and resources to rescue me once._

"Master Eelhardt mentioned Malfoy," Schroeder continued, throwing Harry a smile as full of sweet venom as the conjured cobra he'd once talked out of attacking them on one of the more unusual raids. "That means that this agent is part of the same conspiracy that ended up placing Potter in prison. Not very well-organized, if so."

Harry smiled. He couldn't help himself, and he didn't bother trying to hide it because he knew they wouldn't get out of his smile what he had put into it. If it came to that, if they figured out who he was and what Malfoy was doing with him and all the rest of it, Harry contained enough power in his body, without his wand, to kill both of them before they could step out of this room.

_Stupid of them to come within my reach._

He wouldn't do it unless he had to, because he didn't know how well Malfoy and Ron could deal with the political consequences of the murder. But if they posed a direct threat to his friends, and based on what he already knew about the harm they had caused to the children they'd stolen, he would kill them without hesitation. That was the good side of being a soulless, heartless killing machine, he thought. Strange that Malfoy had never realized he might be protected by it. Would he have encouraged Harry in his thoughts that way, if so?

_No. He wouldn't want me to do it no matter what._

Harry grimaced. Well, there _was _that. He would set the plan aside for now, and return to only thinking about it if he had to. The problem was, he very well might have to, if Malfoy and Ron couldn't follow the clues and come in time. And he had probably always known, in the part of his mind shut away that he didn't want to acknowledge, that Malfoy would come, that there was no keeping him away.

"I wonder," Schroeder said, in the same soft and comfortable voice Harry had heard Wizengamot members use when they were proposing a law that would overturn several facts of life for other people just so that their cronies could have a minor benefit, "whether pain might convince him to talk."

Harry smiled again. They probably would use it. And he knew that he would scream under the Cruciatus, because sooner or later everyone tortured with it would scream, and he wasn't _that _different from anyone else. He was made of the same flesh and blood, neither worse nor better.

But he didn't think they would use the Cruciatus right away. They would start with something else, smaller. And _that_, he might be able to endure until Ron and Malfoy arrived.

"If you asked me questions instead of hinting around," he said, leaning back on the couch he lay on and counting the number of paces that it was from the door, "then I might be able to give you the answers without putting your torturers to any inconvenience."

Schroeder looked at him carefully, perhaps because he came close to recognizing his voice. Moonstone nodded. "Very well," he said. "Why call yourself Rosefield? Why come to us at all?"

Harry sat up and let his arms dangle at his side. "You mean that you hadn't figured that out?" he asked. "And two such smart men as you look to be, too. I thought you would have."

"Some tale of a sick child is unlikely to be the reality," Moonstone said, and leaned in, smooth and confiding. "Will you tell us what is, Hector?"

"Hector?" Harry cocked his head to the side and met smooth voice with whimsical smile.

"I choose to give you the name of a brave warrior from history," Moonstone said, "since you seem to have none of your own, and it was brave of you to walk into our nest, not knowing anything about us except that we had discovered the secret of storing magic."

Harry snorted and draped himself provocatively over the couch again. "I don't know that you have. I was following the trail because I'm interested in the process myself, but no one has managed to solve the riddle in centuries, why should you have?"

"Jealous, Hector?" Moonstone laughed, and it was the sort of laugh a normal politician would use, the sort Harry had done bodyguard duty for and escorted to lunch several times before. He tried to keep his face as neutral as he could while inwardly he burned and seethed. The man was too good an actor, and he needed to be destroyed. "We would share the secret with you, if we knew that you were someone valuable and to be trusted."

Schroeder shifted. Moonstone raised one eyebrow at him. "Of course you would still have full control of the people selected to deal with the magic and the means of getting it, Lucas," he said soothingly.

_Moonstone is the one in control, not Schroeder. I wonder if Schroeder knows that or not. _Harry decided that he would carry the knowledge out of here if he could, and if it was something Malfoy had expected and not knowledge worth risking his life to get, well, at least they had confirmation instead of Malfoy's educated guess.

"What you plan to use it for and what I plan to use it for are not the same," Harry said. "Not even close."

"How do you know that, when we haven't heard each other's plans?" Moonstone took another step towards him, almost crowding him where he sat on the couch, his eyes bright and blank with intensity. "How do you _know_?"

_Good God, he's trying to recruit me, _Harry realized, and did his best to keep from gaping. He wondered if Moonstone would try this with anyone who had discovered their secret, or part of it, or whether it was the effect of his own strong magical signature, which had allowed Moonstone to find him out in the first place. Probably the latter.

Either way, it gave him an advantage he hadn't anticipated, and one that he didn't think Malfoy and Ron would want him to waste.

Harry paused, then inclined his head. "I don't, of course," he said. "But it seems unlikely to me that you would have gathered an organization around you if your purposes were the same as mine."

"You work alone?" Moonstone took a step back from him, his voice sliding down a few notches. "An interesting choice, when the work that uncovered the mechanism of storing magic was a group one."

_And voluntary? _Harry held his face smooth once again. Only someone connected to him with a mind-reading potion like Malfoy's, he thought, would know the extent to which he hated the men in front of him. "Yes," he said. "I couldn't trust that anyone else would want to do the same thing. It's a crazy idea. I dare say that it's based on magical theory no one but me believes in, anymore."

"Tell us what it is," Schroeder said, but his voice sounded weak next to Moonstone's. And Moonstone held up a hand, and he subsided. Harry bit his tongue, and resisted the impulse to ask Moonstone to teach him to do that to annoying Wizengamot members.

"Tell us," said Moonstone, and his voice was a gentle invitation. He would soothe and counsel the grieving that way, Harry thought, and the gullible, and gradually convince them they could have anything they wanted.

"I found a theory that says the reason for the increasing number of Squib children in pure-blood lines and the greater number of Muggleborns is that magic is leaving the wizarding world." Harry lowered his voice into something like a reverent hush. He had indeed heard this theory from a mad wizard he and Ron arrested years ago, and he found himself glad that he remembered it now. "It's flowing away from us. Not enough remains to be absorbed by people's bodies anymore, so we have Squib children. And it goes to crown new wizards, those who can absorb it."

Moonstone's eyes were narrow. "This would be based on the work of Sydney Vetch?"

"You know of him?" Harry asked mildly, but flowed on. As a matter of fact, he couldn't remember if the mad wizard had ever named the theorist he'd taken his ideas from, but it didn't matter. "So we need more magic. We need to release it, after we've found the best places to store the containers, so that it can flow out over the wizarding world and come home. And it should be near pure-blood houses, because they're the strongest lines and the ones who can take the most safely."

Moonstone stepped back from him. "Vetch's ideas were brilliant," he said. "Strange, but—brilliant."

Harry nodded demurely. "And I think there's merit in what he thinks. I want to release the magic that's gathered. You probably want to keep it for yourself. I think that's where we differ."

"Perhaps not," Moonstone said. "Let us show you how we gather and store the magic, and then perhaps we can come to an understanding."

Harry rose slowly to his feet. Moonstone and Schroeder didn't try to prevent him, just watched him. Harry hoped they would take his sudden silence and paling face for excitement that he was about to witness something he had sought for long years but never expected to find.

Instead, he was trying to cope with the idea of seeing a child butchered or blinded or tortured in front of him to force the magic out, or in, depending on if they were a wizard or a Muggle.

_I know all the reasons I shouldn't. I know the long-term strategic reasons. I know that Malfoy and Ron are probably on their way to rescue me right now._

_ But if the choice is between watching a child be tortured without recourse and rescuing them, I know what I have to choose. What I will always choose._

* * *

"We have to find them _now_."

"And I'm doing the tracking the best that I bloody can, Malfoy," Weasley hissed back. They were in Eelhardt's shop, in the room where Potter had met Moonstone, and Weasley crouched near the chairs they had sat in, doubling his wand back and forth over the floor. Eelhardt was unconscious in the next room, all the better to make sure that he didn't send a message to someone. "I have to have more to go on than this. They could have walked out the door and Apparated anywhere. You're the one with the bloody link to Harry, you track him."

Draco set his teeth together and counted under his breath. Then he counted in French, and then in Spanish, because the French alone wasn't enough.

Did Weasley bloody _understand _that the link was what distracted Draco? The spell on Potter's ears has not been renewed when Potter woke—his captors had probably noted it and taken it off as a precaution—but the link was nearly as good at telling Draco the general state of Potter's mind. At the moment, sharp, dangerous spikes shivered through the water, rising and sinking like the teeth of a shark swimming with its mouth open near the surface.

Draco felt the urge to kill, and he knew where it came from. Potter would kill without hesitation in defense of a child he saw being tortured, and Draco knew that would happen even if he had not cast the Retrovoyance curse. There were certain things one did not ask of a Gryffindor, and turning aside from the innocent was one of them.

It was inevitable. It was praiseworthy, in some circles. Draco's were _not _some of them, but on the other hand, he hardly would have felt happy advising someone like Potter to ignore the suffering of an innocent, either.

It was death, if Potter did it.

Moonstone and Schroeder were both there; the way Potter's half-thoughts darted and clashed in the back of his mind told Draco as much. He had already noticed the tone they took on, like rapids running over rocks, that happened around Schroeder and no other person. They didn't have Potter's sheer strength, but they had whatever strange weapons their control of stored magic might have given them, and they were more ruthless.

Then Draco paused and thought about that last idea.

Perhaps _not _more ruthless, actually. But that didn't negate their advantages of numbers and superior knowledge.

"Found it."

Draco turned quickly. Weasley was rising to his feet, cradling something small in his hand. He held it up, and the light reflected from what Draco recognized as a button. On Potter's borrowed robes, he deduced after a moment. Auror robe buttons didn't look like that.

"Whatever we wear," Weasley said, "we always cast a spell that detaches a button and leaves it on the floor if we're hit with a Stunner or a Confundus Charm or—oh, a couple other spells." Draco reacted to this continuing proof of Weasley's distrust in him with no more than a small curl of his lips, because he could. "I hoped Harry would remember to do it on those robes he Transfigured, and he did. It rolled into the corner, under the couch, and it's dim as hell back there. No wonder I couldn't find it." He held the button to his lips and whispered something that made cold magic crackle around the button, the color of old glaciers.

Draco stood still, and said nothing. He didn't believe that Weasley and Potter would have come with something so useful, or at least it was hard to believe, but to say that right now would probably be a stupid idea.

The button glowed once and then twice, like some of the Muggle lights that Draco had seen, and then sprang out of Weasley's grasp and circled the room like a hyperactive dog seeking its master. The next instant, it spun out the door, and Weasley darted after it, calling to Draco to follow.

Because someone had to think of these things, and because he was feeling generous on being reminded that Weasley and Potter did _not _think of everything, after all, Draco paused to cast a spell that rendered Eelhardt asleep and undetectable by any means at most people's disposal before he followed.

* * *

"This is the basis of where we work."

Harry tipped his head back as if to see the extent of the ceiling and made polite noises, while his mind and his eyes took far more note of the place than he was allowing Moonstone and Schroeder to see. Yes. Of course. This was a cavern, the walls cut by water or something else natural long ago, and that explained the strange absence of some sorts of magic found on the little girl's body. In a normal wizarding environment, the background chatter of magic left a residue that Aurors could use to track someone across Muggle London if they could focus in on it. The girl had apparently been taken and held by Muggles, to hear the tale of that magic.

But stone held such background chatter less well, and Moonstone and Schroeder hadn't built it by wand. Harry could hear the calling of some distant stream, the intense, soft wailing of it, and wondered that it didn't set their teeth on edge. Moonstone and Schroeder didn't seem to notice. They moved easily through the cavern in the direction of a group of people waiting at the far end.

Harry could see dark robes, and scarlet ones. Some Aurors were with them. The room spun, and the magic in his hands tried to spring out, but he met it at the barrier of his skin, barring the gates of his mind to turn it back. It was that or go swiftly mad. He forced a bland smile onto his face instead and dipped his head.

"You'll introduce me to your colleagues?" he asked Moonstone and Schroeder out of the corner of his mouth.

"Of course," Schroeder said, and swept a hand at the nearest Auror. "This is Auror Rosenbaum."

Harry smiled and nodded. He knew there was no Auror Rosenbaum in the Department at the moment, although the glamour was so well-done that he had to look out of the corner of his eye to see the faint shimmers of power at the edges of "Rosenbaum's" lips and nose. The face was that of a strong, attractive woman in her mid-thirties, with blonde-brown hair and blue eyes. She smiled back at him, and Harry wondered if he was imagining that the smile was that bland or not.

"And this is Auror Midnight," Schroeder said. The slight distaste in his voice made Harry wonder whether it was for the obvious pseudonym.

This was a young man with jet-black hair and white, nearly bleached skin that made him look unhealthy. He stared at Harry so long Harry thought Midnight recognized him and was about to blurt out an accusation, but instead he ducked his head and fastened his gaze on the ground, sticking his hands into his robe pockets. Harry scrutinized him carefully, but was sure he didn't know him.

"And our testers, Healers Adobe and Future," Moonstone said, with more smoothness on the silly false names than Schroeder had managed. "They were about to show us the new method they had perfected, weren't you, gentlemen?"

The Healers stepped back into what looked like an artificial mass of shadows at the back of the cave. Harry had never seen a glamour like it, and ordinarily he would study it and try to figure out how they had done it.

But not now. Not when he was trying to wrestle the beast at the back of his mind back down into the water again.

The Healers brought forth what looked like a plank of wood with a magical circle floating on and above and _through _it. Harry could make out concentric rings of light, yellow and white and green and pink, and the constantly shifting smaller lights that darted around them, as if they were round racetracks. But he couldn't make out what was in the middle of them. It was a changing mass of haze that made him look away, eyes watering.

"Oh, do try to watch," Moonstone urged. "It always takes one like that at first, until one gets used to it."

Harry turned back at the same time as one of the Healers ducked into the shadows and came out with a thin Muggle child. He had to be a Muggle, given that not a scrap of magic was on him. He was perhaps five years old, thin and clad in a white smock-like garment, with his stringy hair dangling in his eyes and his dark eyes wide and terrified.

Harry tightened chains around himself like the ones that, from the marks on his wrists, had held the child recently. He _would not _charge anyone. He _would _allow himself time to absorb what was going on. They might not intend to hurt the boy. Although he whimpered, he wasn't fighting yet. Perhaps they hadn't hurt him yet, either.

One Healer held the boy up. There was the gleam of a partial Body-Bind around his arms and legs, showing why he didn't struggle. Harry felt the beast rear up in the back of his mind and join the watching.

The other Healer put the block of wood containing the magical circles down on the floor. The circles shone like the rings of Saturn. The other Healer started to lower the boy into the middle of them. Harry made himself stand still.

That is, until the boy's right arm touched the top circle and the smell of burning hair and flesh filled the room, at the same moment as the boy's scream.

Harry let the beast go.


	21. In Fury

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twenty-One-In Fury_

Draco felt the explosion of rage like a sunburst in the back of his head, making him stagger and nearly fall in the middle of his run behind Weasley. He shouted breathlessly, but wasn't sure that the git would actually listen to him. He was on his knees with his hands over his eyes, he knew that, and his skin aching, and his head full of magic and a single, smooth, sleek, pointed thought that had no words. It drove ahead, cleaving the waters of Potter's mind, and Draco knew what the end of it would be, whether or not it talked to him to tell him about itself.

"Weasley!" he shouted again, and felt hands clamp on his shoulders, though the sensation felt faint and far away next to the pressure of the sleek thought.

"Yes, Malfoy, I'm here," Weasley said, and he didn't sound as strained or frightened or disgusted as Draco would have thought he would. He clung to that expectation and Weasley's defiance of it, to have something to think about that was not Potter and the way he was bursting bounds. "What is it? Is Harry moving?"

"Killing someone," Draco said, and then gripped Weasley's hand and turned it over. "Swear that you'll give me your blood willingly. Swear."

Weasley shuddered and tensed, while in Draco's head the sleek thought met its first target and exploded. Now his mind was full of what seemed like steel-feathered birds, screaming as they turned in circles, their wings slicing and shearing one thought from another, again and again and again.

"Is this blood magic?" Weasley demanded. "Because I don't want to have anything to do with blood magic, it's wrong-"

"Not wrong if it's given willingly!" Draco shouted, or thought he shouted. The blank whirl was taking over his mind, whiteness by whiteness, steel feather by steel feather, and he knew his head would fly apart if he had to endure it much longer.

_No saying that you won't fly apart if you get closer to it, too. _But at least he would then be in a position to stop it.

"Give it to me!" His fingers clawed into Weasley's hand, and for a moment he thought he would be forced to work with the small amount of blood his nails were digging out. But then Weasley made a disgusted sound and fumbled with what seemed to be a blade, tossing it to Draco. A small knife, Draco decided from the way the hilt fit into his hand, and the blade was dull. But he was a Potions master. He knew how to slice and dice in such a way that he would create large wounds in the skin, because learning how to _avoid _those had been an essential part of his training.

"I don't know what the fuck you're doing, Malfoy, but you better not-"

"Shut up, Weasley," Draco whispered, and sliced. The blood began to flow over Weasley's palm, down his own fingers. He didn't need much more than a few drops, but he still brought his hand to his mouth and sucked in the blood he did get, desperate not to waste it. The more he had, the more powerful he was and the more quickly this could be accomplished.

Potter destroyed someone else, or maybe that was only in his mind. Of course it was, it was all in his mind, and he could feel the senselessness rising, Potter's blades cutting apart the chains that Draco called logic and sense, splitting the connections, making him, in another moment, as mad as Potter seemed to be-

_No! Focus!_ The taste of copper on his tongue and Weasley's unsophisticated retching sounds brought him back. Draco tore his hand out of his mouth and forced his eyes briefly open against the patterns of black and white that danced across them, plunging his hand into his robe pocket after another potion.

This time, he managed to pull it out by himself, and had a moment of grim amusement at that before his head flared with magic again and the thought of what Potter was probably doing had all amusement fleeing away. _But at least I don't need to hurt Weasley's tender sensibilities, _he told himself as he tipped the potion down his throat. It tasted like cotton, but he swallowed around and through that, and it slid reluctantly down towards his stomach.

It touched the remnants of the blood on the way, and Draco felt a sensation throughout his being as if he had sudden become the one link an important chain had needed to join together. He nodded. The connection had been made through his body, through the blood of Potter's long-standing friend and the mental bond Draco himself had to Potter. Usually one would have needed a third person, the one who would provide the memories of the target, but Draco had bypassed that requirement with his idea to feed Potter the mental link potion.

He felt a moment's pride at his foresight, and then the link seized him and whirled him and tossed him high. He thought he felt Weasley try to grasp him and hold on, but his hands fell away and Draco was dancing through the tight space occupied during Apparition, by himself, speeding along.

His hand touched the first battle potion he would cast, and he listened to Potter's thoughts.

They were random now, little more than impressions, but still Draco thought he felt, and thought he saw:

* * *

The Healer holding the boy died at once, his arms melting away from his body to become little more than a swirling mixture of colors, phantoms and paint that dripped to the floor. Harry saw that, and he saw the wave of color snatch up the little boy and bear him away, as if he were cradled in watery arms, towards the far corner of the cavern.

Then Harry turned, and the second Healer died trying to scramble away. Harry looked at him, and dust rose from the floor and swallowed him, transmuting him, so that he became dust himself.

The dust and the colors danced past his eyes, fast and yet flickering, as though there were moments Harry blinked and missed their circulation. He wondered why that was, but the idea slipped away before he could focus on it and became less than important. He turned his head and blinked in truth, and Auror Midnight ducked from him, so that whatever weapon Harry carried in his eyes, or body, or whatever it was, missed.

Harry didn't mind that he'd missed. He felt curiously detached, watching his rage as a wall of emotion in front of him that didn't connect to anything else, and which he could walk outside and in and around and through when he wanted to. But he wondered what it might be like to feel it again, so he reached out and slipped a hand into the wall, feeling around for something solid-

It crashed over him, the blinding, breathless fury, the kick up from the stomach that was like orgasm in reverse, the rage. Harry roared and spun around, seeking Moonstone and Schroeder. The Healers had tortured this particular boy, but they were the ones who had set up everything in the first place, who would go on torturing more children if Harry didn't stop them, and he had to find them and destroy them.

_Destroy them, _sang a hammering pulse in the back of his mind. Harry wondered for a moment if that was the kind of thing Malfoy heard thanks to the potion, and then put the thought aside as irrelevant. He hurled himself ahead, mind and magic together, to find Moonstone and Schroeder's hiding places.

They were gone.

Harry found the place in the cavern wall where they had taken off part of the stone, doors disguised as ordinary rock-long ago, and with Muggle tools, so nothing had showed to his first scan for magical ways to escape-and escaped into other tunnels. Harry started to step into the tunnels, but something hit him in the middle of the back and hurled him away from the entrance.

An Auror Stunner. Midnight and Rosenbaum were still here, and Harry could kill them if he wanted to.

He nearly turned around to do it. He nearly stepped ahead down the tunnels anyway. But another thought struck him like the Stunner, and made him hesitate. What would happen if he abandoned the Muggle boy here, with the traitorous Aurors still able to reach him and hurt him? What if there were more children here, children who needed his help and didn't have any other hope of rescue? He had done this in the first place to help the children who needed any form of help he could offer-

The hesitation weakened him. He could have handled Midnight and Rosenbaum without blinking a few minutes ago, but now he could feel the strength bleeding out of him as they hit him again and again with Stunners, and the shields he had put on himself were faltering, and he turned away from the tunnels and then wavered, because the two Aurors were darting around the room, casting in tandem, never allowing him a moment of rest. Harry roared like a wounded bull.

Then Malfoy appeared beside him, with a loud whistling noise that seemed to rise up from a depth beneath the floor. Rosenbaum tried to hit him with her next curse, but Malfoy flung a potion at her that caused her to flinch and scream, clawing at her eyes, as it burst at her feet.

Midnight got through with a curse that made a long, shallow scratch open down the side of Malfoy's arm. Harry moved to shield him, feeling calmer and more rational now that he had someone to protect and didn't have to decide between impossible choices. He opened his mouth to ask Malfoy if Ron had come with him; it seemed odd that Malfoy would have been unable to find him this fast without Ron and the button trick, but Harry saw no sign of his partner.

Then a short cry came from the side, where Harry's magic had taken the boy, and Midnight turned and cast a spell in that direction. It was probably reflex, to stop the crying and make the boy less distracting for him as a source of noise during the ensuing fight.

Harry's mind settled. He could feel his magic breathing now in a single direction. He smiled, and his magic reached out in front of him like clutching fingers. He could picture them that way if he wanted to. It would give him pleasure.

Once again he was outside, detached, from his emotions, but that was because he could predict the future. He knew what was going to happen next, and he felt a vague sense of goodwill, the way he would if he was looking forward to a difficult performance by his favorite singer.

Midnight turned back as the first edge of Harry's magic reached him, and his left arm broke with a snap like a matchstick. He tried to raise his right arm, because his right hand was holding his wand, and that broke, too. Then Harry's magic reached down Midnight's body and _squeezed_, and his femur broke, his keencaps, the bones in his toes, and the breaking spread out and around his body, through all the bones, the magic cradling his body to make sure that life stayed in the flesh while Harry shattered and pummeled and made Midnight a work of art.

He was smiling. He knew he was. But the smile didn't seem important. He was going to put Midnight in pain, and that was all.

Malfoy's hand fell on his arm, and clamped.

* * *

The bravest thing Draco Malfoy ever did in his life was touching Harry Potter when he was in a rage like that.

He thought about it later, and agreed with himself it was the bravest thing. Some people might say it was the only one he had ever done, but Draco knew better, and he had no interest in debating with people like that, anyway.

So he touched, and Potter lunged against his hold and turned on him with white teeth snapping, a red flame deep in his green eyes, the magic rising around him and pushing against Draco until he felt as if he was locked in ice from the waist down. But that meant his arms were still free, and he wrapped them around Potter, pulling him close, focusing on the link between their minds that the potion created. There had been a moment when it calmed, soon after Draco's arrival, and he had used that to reinforce his Occlumency barriers, so that when Potter went wild again, Draco hadn't lost himself completely.

"Potter," he whispered. "No. Not like that. You don't want to do that. I know you don't. Come back to me."

Potter screamed right into Draco's face, the sound as nerve-shattering and surprising in its depth of sound as a lion's roar. Draco didn't flinch, didn't allow himself to start back. The moment he did that, he thought, Potter would lash out in reaction to the fear, and that Draco had been fearless was the only thing that had kept him alive so far, he knew.

"You can't scare me like that," Draco said, his voice steady. He heard moaning from the two corners of the room, from the Aurors, and it crossed his mind, at a distance, that he should check and make sure his Intense Light Potion was still blinding the female one. But he could only do that when he could look away from the storm-surge of Potter's eyes, which it wasn't safe to do yet. "I know what you really are. What you are under the Retrovoyance curse, what you aren't right now. Come back to me."

He could feel some of the familiar sensations in the back of Potter's mind reasserting themselves. The little stream of his thoughts that had flooded and vanished when the fury overran it was coming back. Now and then Draco could make out something that had words to it, like _Surprising_ and _Still_ and _Fearless._

Draco wondered what other gesture he could make to show Potter that he was here and didn't fear him, beyond embracing him. Then he had it. He smiled, not happily, because it was more than a little bit ridiculous, but it would be more ridiculous to die when he might have a solution. He leaned forwards, using the cold grip of the magic around his waist to brace himself on, and rested his forehead against Potter's. The old scar felt unexpectedly rough against his skin.

"Come back to me," he whispered. "Think of the things that you told me you did when you felt this way. Planned, or flung yourself into work, or cast spells in an underground room. Come on. What do you want to do right now more than you want to kill these people?"

Potter closed his eyes, and Draco felt his body tremble once. Then his eyes leaped open, he took his wand-and it was a _relief _to see him with that bloody holly wand in his hand, for once, instead of the wandless power that had crowded and pressed all around him until this moment-and pointed it over Draco's shoulder. Draco saw his lips move to shape the incantation for a Stunner, and the next moment heard a body falling to the floor. Draco released his own breath in a small huff. He reckoned that the female Auror had recovered from the effect of his potion after all, faster than he had expected.

Potter looked at him, and Draco realized that he was on the edge, still, wand or no wand. His eyes were deep and wild, and he looked as though he wanted to come back to the brink of sanity but hated the trail that would lead him there. Draco frowned. If Potter was rational enough to realize what he needed to do, why not _do _it?

"You said," he began. He didn't move his arms, he didn't move his forehead, and he wondered if it was a mistake to be so close, if Potter needed to lash out. Perhaps he would decide that he needed to destroy Draco?

Then Potter smiled at him, a twisted smile that made Draco's mind recoil back into itself, and the cold grip of the magic on Draco's legs and hips was gone, and Potter was saying, "_You _said," and he kissed Draco savagely, so hard that Draco felt his lips split open against Potter's teeth and his mind went white again.

Potter was still kissing him with tremendous force as he surfaced again, bearing him back into the wall of what seemed like an ordinary cavern, but Draco could feel him trembling. Holding himself back, even now, making sure that Draco had the chance to change his mind if he wanted.

Draco thought about it. Or he thought about it while bits and pieces of his mind shrieked in savage curiosity and glory and fell all about him, battered and broken from their contact with that part of Potter's mind.

"Yes," he gasped.

And Potter laughed into his mouth, gave him one more bloody kiss, and then fell to his knees. The magic danced around Draco, a whirlwind like Fiendfyre from which he could see eyes peering and heads and limbs nodding, and his clothes were gone. Potter opened his mouth and swallowed Draco's cock without preamble. Draco felt teeth and arched his hips in protest.

The teeth were gone the next moment, and Potter flung all the force and fury still raging in his body into his sucking, his tongue _scouring _Draco's cock, his throat pulling as if he meant to break Draco down into food, digest him, devour him. Draco's head tilted back, his hands found holds in the small cracks in the stone, and he panted and sang a shrill song of desire to the air.

His world narrowed. Thoughts, gone. The rage in his mind and his worry over what might happen to the two Aurors, gone. The tunnels behind him were the last thing in his awareness to vanish, fading like a sight seen from the height of a speeding broom.

There was heat, and wetness, and pleasure so intense that it made him tremble with pain. There was that, and nothing else.

* * *

Harry had thought he wouldn't know how to do this. He had mostly been with women, and other than a few intense dreams, he hadn't done this sort of thing to another man.

But he knew, and he could feel his rage settling as he worked on getting it right, on giving Malfoy what he needed, wanted, deserved, on slaking the need that burned in him, too. He reached down and jerked at himself twice, savagely, until it hurt and felt good with the pain. It was better than tearing furrows in his skin with his nails, the only other halfway viable option right now.

Malfoy's hips slammed forwards against his face. Harry couldn't breathe, but that was okay; the tight red and black spirals dancing in his head became the spirals of breathlessness instead of emotion. He worked through it, sucking until Malfoy drew back a little and he could get some air. Then Harry pulled in a noisy breath and dived into what had to be the last part of it, sucking and swallowing and lashing with his tongue, trying to make Malfoy come. He _had _to come, he was _going _to come, he wasn't going to beat Harry with this the way he had fought him so many times-

And then, yes, he was, though the jam of Malfoy's hips hurt enough this time that Harry wondered if his nose was broken. He swallowed, and swallowed again, the thickness in his throat acting the way a gag would have, forcing him to think about his thoughts instead of voicing them.

Forcing him to work through his emotions instead of acting them out.

He closed his eyes against the last remnants of something that might have been shame, and sat back up and away from Malfoy, not wiping his mouth because he didn't want Malfoy to take that gesture the wrong way. He was capable of thinking about things like that at the moment, with his mind clear and unmarked by the cries of the dead. He stared into the distance, thinking. There was the child to rescue, the Aurors to secure-he didn't know if anything could be done with Midnight-and Moonstone and Schroeder to pursue. And someone should go back to the holding cells and check to see if Campion had been freed. If he had, that would indicate Schroeder or Moonstone or both had recognized Harry's magic and knew he was free.

_That was stupid, what you did._

Harry grimaced and nodded, and stood. Yes, it had been. On the other hand, wailing about that and beating his head against the ground wasn't on the agenda, either. He had enough other things to do. He took a step towards the alcove where his magic had placed the Muggle boy and was presumably still guarding him.

Malfoy's hand closed on his arm like a vise. Harry found it unexpectedly easy to stand still and turn his head to speak to the man instead of snapping and lashing out, the way he would have a few hours earlier. Yes, the fuck had cleared his head.

"Did I hurt you?" he had to ask, because Malfoy's face was bloodless. "I'm sorry."

Malfoy shook his head, once, and then twice, and Harry didn't think the second shake was aimed at him. He dropped Harry's arm a moment later and said abruptly, "It doesn't matter. You should-you should decide what you're going to do about that Auror whose bones you broke."

Harry nodded once and turned around. It felt good to have a direction, and someone else's eyes could be twice as valuable when Harry was still trying to recover-a little-from having his mind clouded and his eyes used by a sense of revenge that didn't entirely belong to him.

Midnight was still alive, but moaning softly, continuously. Harry knelt down beside him and cast some of the simple diagnostic spells, then nodded. Midnight's magic was keeping him from worse pain, and either Harry had broken fewer bones than he thought he had or Midnight's magic had begun to work to repair them. He would probably be able to walk in a few days, sooner with the help of a good Healer or Skele-Gro. But with his magical core diverted to what his body saw as threatening injuries, he probably wouldn't be able to cast.

He shrank away from Harry when he looked up and saw him, his arm over his head. Harry sighed and cast a spell that made him sleep, then turned towards Malfoy. "He'll live, and so will Rosenbaum-the other one," he added, when Malfoy stared at him. "But we should find out what they know before we let them go."

Malfoy nodded and started to say something else, but a weak cry of, "Help!" cut through the cave before he could. Malfoy whipped around, and Harry started to his feet. "Did you hear that?" he demanded.

"What?" Malfoy shook his head. His face and knuckles were very pale. "It sounded like an animal."

Harry glared at him and then stalked towards the cry as it repeated itself. He found the boy his magic had saved in a corner of the cave, surrounded by glittering walls of color. They parted and splashed back into the cavern floor like water as Harry passed them.

"Help," the boy whispered, and hesitated before holding out his arms. Harry reckoned he was frightened enough not to care about who did the rescuing, as long as they didn't hurt him.

"How are you hurt?" Harry asked gently, not touching him yet but looking him over.

"What are you doing, Potter?" Malfoy's voice came from behind him, and sounded strangled.

Harry turned and stared at him. "Helping him," he said. "I know he's a Muggle, Malfoy, but you-"

"What's a Muggle?" the boy interrupted. "They called me that. Are you with _them_?" He pulled away, his eyes huge.

"I can't understand you, Potter," Malfoy said evenly. "You and the _boy_ are both speaking Parseltongue."

There was a long moment before Harry's blinking ceased and his brain engaged with a _Well, _fuck.


	22. In Terror

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twenty-Two—In Terror_

Watching Potter kneel in front of a boy whom Draco had thought a Muggle and listening to them speak Parseltongue would rank among the most surreal experiences of Draco's life.

Those sliding syllables took him back immediately to the nights when he had sat in a chair at the Manor's dining table, and listened to the Dark Lord speak to Nagini. Commanding her to hunt, to eat, to kill, to dine. To bring terror into someone's life, and because of the way Draco couldn't stop dreaming that someday she might eat him, or his parents, that life was often Draco's.

He kept his hands clenched in front of him now, his breathing light and steady, because not doing so would probably make him fly apart in a panic. Potter had gone back to the boy after Draco's announcement about his language, with a single-minded concentration that Draco found himself burning with envy of. He had no reason to envy Potter, and he told himself that with a sharp shake of his head and a concentration on what was in front of him.

"What are we going to do now?" he asked.

Potter spent a few more words hissing at the boy, then turned away from him and looked at Draco, probably to force himself to switch to English. "I don't know," he said, with a frankness that made Draco want the Parseltongue back. At least then he wouldn't have to hear about how _fucked _they were. "The boy doesn't seem able to speak English; there was no sign he understood you. Whatever they did to him, it gave him magic, but it took away his language."

There was a light in the back of his eyes, and a wave in the thoughts that connected to Draco's, that told him to be careful. Potter wouldn't care who got in the way when he was charging to someone's rescue, but Draco did, and would. He caught Potter's eye and said, "We can't take a child speaking Parseltongue into any wizarding village and expect him to be unnoticed."

"No," Potter said, and his smile was small, and complacent, and unholy, and utterly ruined Draco's day. "But we can expect him to be unnoticed if we take him back to your flat."

Draco half-closed his eyes, and counted all the way to twenty before the boy made a weak noise and interrupted him. Potter twisted back and hissed something that was probably meant to be soothing, but still danced up and down Draco's spine with an unacceptable kind of menace. He licked his lips and tried to resume his speech. "Potter, _no_. Moonstone and Schroeder already have my name from you, or rather from the man you were playing. The minute they come back and realize that you've disappeared, they'll check there."

Potter shook his head. "They don't know that you came here to help me. They have no reason to suspect you."

"Having my name known by Rosefield, and passed to Eelhardt, is going to be enough," Draco said shortly. He had seen Moonstone produce marvelous, and horrible, results before because he had a scrap of information that someone else didn't have. He wouldn't test himself against that money and that power before he had to.

Except he was starting to suspect that he would have to. When he looked at Potter, he felt the throb in the back of his mind and the throb in his satisfied cock, and knew they were—tangled, now. Beset. Draco would have to keep Potter around until he figured out what to do with him, at least. And Potter was going to be a mad monster to anyone who tried to separate him from that child. Free from the influence of the Retrovoyance curse or not, Draco didn't think he could count on him to act _sane_.

"I'm sorry," Potter said, and the apology shocked Draco into looking at him. "You're right."

Draco stared. "What?" He had hated the way Potter had acted before, the unpredictability of it, the way he had of pressing into someone's life and just effortlessly taking over, and the way he had done it to Draco's. But he hated more the sensation that Potter would go somewhere else and Draco would never know where it was, or that he would listen to the thoughts in the back of his head and have no idea what had caused them, what combination of actions near Potter or around him could do that.

"It's not fair to involve you anymore," Potter said, and then whispered a Lightening Charm to the child and rose with the boy securely cradled in his arms. The boy buried his face against Potter's chest and didn't look up. Draco wondered for a moment that a child so abused should trust anyone, but perhaps it made it different that Potter could speak to him. "You've done so much already. Come to my rescue twice. Forced me to see sense. Used a potion that might have been the saving of us, since you probably followed my thoughts to get here." He gave Draco a faint smile that was still dazzling in the way it cut through the darkness. "Thank you."

"I used Weasley's blood to follow you here," Draco said, speaking without thinking, because this truth was less bizarre than the one he was hearing. "And combined it with my thoughts and memories of you, and a potion. Normally, you can do that trick with three people. One to contribute the blood, one to contribute the memories—and they both have to be people familiar with the one they're tracking—and one to swallow the potion."

Potter smiled, a relaxed, easy expression that for a moment told Draco how he looked when he wasn't chasing down child abusers. "But it worked for you without the third person because you already had the link to me, right?" he asked, and then nodded. "That was clever of you to think of doing it that way."

"Weasley had to be convinced it wasn't real blood magic," Draco began, and then interrupted himself. "You distracted me, Potter. What do you mean what you say it's not right to involve me further?"

"I have to take this child away somewhere where he'll be safe," Potter said, and then paused, a shadow falling across his face. "Child," he muttered. "That's probably what _they_ called him, too. I don't even know his name." He hissed something to the boy, who jerked his head up and replied with what sounded like a rolling gasp to Draco.

"Oh," Potter said, and Draco wasn't even sure it was a word he was supposed to understand, it was so softly sighed and said with such an expression of surprise on his face. His hand rose to cup the back of the boy's neck, and he shook his head, his hair bouncing around him and making Draco wonder how long it had been since he'd had a haircut.

_Irrelevant thoughts, thoughts that have no place here, _Draco thought, and pictured his mind as a crystal, bright and pure and flawless, without any of the distracting lights charging around the inside that his thoughts wanted to put there. For a moment, the image trembled and he thought it would shatter, but then it broke in the best of ways, filling his head with true clarity and brilliance.

"Tell me what his name is, Potter," he said, and he said the words without pleading or command. That was the best part about it, the ability to sigh out the words like that, and have Potter listen to him.

Potter raised his head and blinked in wonder, then seemed to understand that even an implied question required an answer. It hadn't taken Draco long, after all, considering everything, to teach him that. He swallowed and answered, "Adam. I knew—there was a boy I knew on my first case named Adam."

"And what happened to him?" Draco asked, because Potter's thoughts whispered _Remember._

"I—he died," Potter said. "We got him out of the house that held him, but it was too much for him, and he—went."

Draco found that he didn't want to know what kind of horrors the pauses in that sentence concealed. Yes, it was perfectly possible that it was a maudlin story, the kind that would only affect Potter, but still.

"You can bring him to my flat," he said. "For now," he had to add. "It's late, and we need to find Weasley and make sure he knows what happened. And _we _need to make decisions about what _we _are going to do next."

Potter didn't seem to notice the pronoun. He nodded two times, quickly and jerkily, and then again a third time, more slowly. He cradled Adam against his chest and said something else in Parseltongue. Adam tightened his arms and hissed back, and then, as far as Draco could tell, fell asleep. He didn't know whether exhaustion or something more sinister prompted that slumber.

And as far as he could tell from the way Potter held the boy, it wouldn't matter. Anyone trying to get near the boy to harm him now wouldn't get far. And Potter would treat any wound, any poison, any need for rest.

Draco read the devotion in the way he held himself. And in the way he looked, too, but Potter didn't seem to be looking _at _him. His eyes stared through the cavern wall when he wasn't looking at the boy, and his body was taut and still. Once again, as Draco had seen only once before, Potter's body and mind matched. The murmuring thoughts in the back of his mind murmured, _Have to find,_ and _Rest_, and _In the morning._

Draco reached out to take Potter's arm to Apparate them, wondering as he did so why he felt so lonely.

* * *

In between the thoughts about Adam and the explanation he was already envisioning for Ron—who was owed nothing less than the truth, complete and whole, no matter how embarrassing it might be—Harry noticed the way Malfoy stood and sat around him, even when they were back in the flat and Ron was in full, yelling flood. Adam had gone down for a nap on a Transfigured pallet in Malfoy's back bedroom, and Malfoy himself sat across from Ron, listening to him rant without moving.

They had involved the man, and he wasn't getting out of this without some scrapes. Harry saw that, now, and saw how silly he had been to assume that he and Ron would go ahead with this plan to fight Moonstone and Schroeder, whatever it turned out to be, and Malfoy would walk away.

Moonstone and Schroeder knew his _name._ He was involved in this fight, whether that was what he would have chosen or not. Malfoy had no choice but to listen and to contribute and to plan, and knowing him, he would fashion a better scheme than Harry and Ron could have alone, full of backups for contingencies that they hadn't considered yet.

But…

Harry wondered how much Malfoy's involvement had cost him so far. Had it got him anywhere near the revenge he desired? He'd had to use his magic and his potions, but for little tangible gain. That had to sting someone like Malfoy, who had had a thriving business until Harry showed up, and then Harry had arrested one of his assistants and started the whole tide of shit flowing downhill.

_Could you have left Adam there? Could you not have arrested Campion, once you began to realize that he had anything to do with this? _

Harry shook his head. He knew what the answers to those questions was already, which was why they were less than interesting.

He could have gone about it in a different way, though. He could have told Malfoy his suspicions about Campion and had a private interrogation, instead of one in the middle of the Ministry. Do it subtly enough, and Campion might never have realized there was a problem, and that meant, in turn, that Schroeder wouldn't have known.

Their biggest advantage, surprise, had been lost, and mostly because of him.

"…and then you _Apparated away, _right after you _swallowed my blood_, and—Harry, are you listening to me?"

Harry shook his head and turned to face Ron. "Sorry, no, not for the last bit," he said. "But you were saying that I was irresponsible and didn't take enough precautions. I don't think any precautions could have kept me safe from Moonstone, because we didn't know that he could recognize magical signatures like that. But the rest of it, yeah."

Ron opened his mouth, then closed it again. "That's the first time I've heard you accept responsibility like that in a long time, mate," he said cautiously. "I mean, it's great, of course it is, but I just want to know—why."

He faltered to a stop, perhaps because Malfoy was watching him with cool contempt. Harry rolled his eyes at Malfoy—he should know better, when he had seen Ron be more strong and courageous and useful in the last little while than Harry himself—and answered, "Because the Retrovoyance curse's influence is gone. And I have someone else to make plans for now."

Malfoy seemed to stop breathing, but Ron didn't notice, if the intent way he was staring at Harry was any indication. "Who?" he asked.

"Adam," Harry said. "He can't speak English. I may be able to find out what they did to him and reverse it, but for now, I'm the only link he has to the outer world, the only one who can understand him." He felt something powerful grip his chest and fill his mouth, the way the rage used to, but he didn't recognize it. The closest thing to it he knew was an impulse to cry, and he didn't do that anymore. "I have to stay with him and work with him until he's either healed and can go home, or until we take down Moonstone and Schroeder, or something else definite happens. But that means I'll probably have to go into hiding with him. He'll need somewhere safe."

"You can't go into hiding," Malfoy said quietly. "That would confirm for Moonstone and Schroeder what they might have suspected, when they felt the strength of your magic."

Harry shook his head back at him. "It's the safest way. If they suspect me and want confirmation, they'll find some way to make Campion tell the truth, or break the spell on him. In hiding, I can keep Adam safe and make them unsure about what I'm doing and how much I know. And you can walk away from this, Malfoy, with my deepest thanks, and with payment if you want it."

Malfoy leaned an arm against the back of his chair and turned a gaze on Harry so rich in contempt that Harry flinched in spite of himself. It was nothing like the way he had looked at Ron.

And it told Harry that he had done wrong, _again_. How? He had thought he was thinking it through from Malfoy's point of view, remembering that he had done all this for them and yet received no payment and precious little gratitude for it. He had thought Malfoy would take his freedom with both hands.

"I would still be in danger," Malfoy said. "You used my name."

Harry spread his hands. "But if I walked away with Adam, and you didn't know where I was, then they would have no reason to trouble you. They couldn't make you tell what you didn't know."

"Do you think the questioning will stop at that, that Moonstone would ever believe I was not lying to him?" Malfoy's eyebrows rose. "He would lie to someone about this, and he treats everyone else by his own standard of distrust. No, Potter. It would become an immediate and tormenting threat to him, and he would be sure that I held something back. Whatever you do from now on, our strength and safety is in allies. You will have to let me help."

"And _me_," Ron said, sounding as though he didn't know why he had let Malfoy speak for so long. Harry smiled at him, but didn't turn his eyes away from Malfoy's face, because he couldn't. "Besides, mate, could you even care for a kid on your own? I don't think so. The only times that you've ever baby-sat were for a few hours."

Harry grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck. "You're right," he said at last. "I wouldn't know what to do. But how are we going to keep him safe from Moonstone and Schroeder, and keep them from finding out that we took him? They might be moving the other children they've tortured to some more secure place right now." The thought made his mind churn, but he kept still when Malfoy held up a hand in front of him as though to command his attention.

"Have you thought about this in detail?" Malfoy asked quietly. "What do Moonstone and Schroeder suspect, and what do they _know_?"

"But that's the one thing we can't know," Harry argued. "Unless we ask them, and we can't."

"Can't we?" Malfoy smiled, and his face was as bright and pale as a vampire's, his teeth as sharp. Harry surveyed him in fascination, and Malfoy half-turned his head as though he resented the scrutiny. "I think being with Gryffindors has infected me," he murmured. "I have a plan that relies on daring and boldness."

"Instead of keeping your head down and sneaking around in the shadows?" Ron muttered. "How surprising."

Harry darted an irritated glance at him. He knew Ron was trying to deal with his tension the only way he could, but Malfoy had already risked a lot for Harry, and more than once. Ron seemed to remember that in the next moment and gave a short nod, shrugging his own apology.

"Or using potions to achieve the same result, yes," Malfoy said calmly. "I need not only do those things, though they lie within the range of my expertise." He turned back to Harry. "Not when we have someone with powerful magic at our disposal."

"I don't know if I can muster it like that except when someone else is in danger," Harry admitted. He could feel the forces swirling through him now that had reduced one Healer to dust and the other to something even more elemental, and shivered. Malfoy half-closed his eyes and tilted his head to the side like someone listening to divine music. Well, he would, wouldn't he, when he had that potion that connected him to Harry's thoughts? "It's—it would be hard for me to do that on the spur of the moment."

"I didn't mean the sheer strength of your magic, actually, or the strange weapons that you can make out of it," Malfoy remarked, opening his eyes. "I meant that you can speak Parseltongue, and that you can cast a corporal Patronus charm, and that you are a better actor than I thought you were."

"You want me to go in person to fool them again? I don't think—"

"Would I suggest something that wouldn't _work_, Potter?" Malfoy leaned forwards again, and something about the curl of his hand around the arm of his chair, and the way his chest heaved, made Harry remember that stupid blowjob in the middle of the cavern. He lowered his chin to his chest and stared at his hands, wondering how to apologize without revealing to Ron what he was apologizing for. "No. Not when we know our enemy now. I plan to contact Moonstone, to use his knowledge of my name against him, and offer to tell him what he wants to know in exchange for further immunity from his prosecution."

"What?" Ron exclaimed, but Harry threw out a hand to stop him from drawing his wand. There had to be more to it. He knew that now, to the point that the thought of Malfoy lying made him snort. He held Malfoy's eyes and tried to use the back of his mind, not that he could consciously control the thoughts there, to urge him to continue.

Malfoy flushed on the end of his thoughts and lowered his eyes, as if he knew what Harry was saying and it upset him for some reason. Or…Harry had seen him flush like that when Harry was going to suck him, too.

But that was another discussion altogether. Malfoy flowed on. "I'll bring him here and tell him a carefully-constructed lie, one that will make him think all he wants most—for there to have been no true breach in security, that the person who found his way to them is some lone madman whom I also disclaim—is true. And in the meantime, Potter, you will use your magic to sound his magical signature."

Harry blinked. "That art relies on Legilimency, doesn't it? I've never had talent enough at Legilimency to be worth mentioning." During Auror training, the Ministry had tutored those who did have that kind of talent in the basics, but Harry's mind had remained way too open and his thoughts not concentrated enough.

"No," Malfoy said, with a patience that rang as if it was made of steel. "Reading the magical signature is a spell, and one that takes a good deal of power. Not often useful under torture, since the victim's magical signature would change, and someone trying to do it from hiding might well fail at holding his Disillusionment Charm, or glamour, or whatever else is keeping him from sight."

Harry nodded. "But I still have a certain Invisibility Cloak." He paused. "Are you sure Moonstone can't see through them? Some people like Dumbledore could."

"He's not that strong," Malfoy said. "And one of my—associates—used a Cloak to hide from him before."

"He might be more alert this time," Ron objected. "He _has _to be rattled."

"That doesn't mean that he was not rattled the last time that my associate sneaked in and out with a cauldronful of Potions ingredients that Moonstone no doubt would have liked to keep for himself," Malfoy said peacefully. "No, I think we can do this. But it will depend on very careful timing, and a plausible lie."

"If they find out that Campion isn't Harry, then the whole plan is rubbish," Ron said. "How are we going to keep them from doing that? Or at least know if they have?"

"Why, Weasley, I thought you would never ask." Malfoy turned towards Ron with a smirk that was more like a smile. It made Harry wonder, for a moment, why Ron and Malfoy, who had hated each other so long, could share a better relationship than he and Malfoy did.

But he knew the answer to that. Their relationship had been fucked-up by the war and everything else in Hogwarts, and since they had met again, he had done a lot of the fucking-up himself. He settled back and listened to Malfoy outline for Ron exactly what an interested Auror inside the Ministry, openly repenting for having been partners with the mad Potter, could do.

And he listened, too, for any cries from the back room, cries that would only sound like hisses to the others.

* * *

_Want a better one with him, _said Potter's thoughts, constantly, in slightly different words and slightly different tones, but always returning to those core words.

Draco held his face firm and still, and conversed with Weasley with marble-like dedication and control, and refused to let the shivers of strangeness disrupt his life. Potter had done enough of that already. He could have the courtesy to wait and unleash any other strangeness in the future, after the execution of their plan.

Draco, though, knew they wouldn't be that lucky. Which meant they needed a contingency plan.

As he had several times since Potter had walked into his shop to tell him about the Divination Professor's vision, he thanked Merlin there was a Slytherin among them.


	23. In the Fire

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twenty-Three—In the Fire_

"You wanted to meet with my master?"

Of course Draco had expected a lesser functionary to answer his call, instead of Moonstone himself, but he could pretend to be someone who resented it. He set his shoulders and stood there as if thinking about his response before he inclined his head and said, "Yes. If he has some time available this month."

The thin face in the fire hesitated. Draco had obtained this Floo address two years ago in exchange for a potion that involved a bit of unicorn blood. He knew it didn't connect directly to one of Moonstone's homes or business, of course, but it connected to someone who could introduce him to someone who could introduce him to someone else, and eventually the message would reach Moonstone.

This dark man eyed Draco for some minutes, looking for the sarcasm, before he said, "I am not sure that he will have time for a Malfoy."

_Do you know where he is? _The words burned on Draco's tongue. _Do you have any idea, since Potter—or the powerful wizard he thought he could handle like a kitten, since we hope he doesn't know it's Potter—chased him away from that cavern yesterday? _

But if he had been foolish enough to ask the questions, they still might not have brought him an answer, since this man was low enough in the hierarchy to answer the firecalls. Draco sighed and made a great fuss of leaning back in the chair he'd placed in front of the fire and looking up at the ceiling. "Take a message, then," he said, in the cutting, bored voice he'd stolen from his father. "I'm sure he will wish to see _me_, once he hears what I'm calling about."

"Yes, of course." The thin face relaxed, and the man turned for parchment, his movements like a scrabbling rat's. Draco touched his teeth together behind the protection of his lips. The flunkey was accustomed to dealing with those who had "important" messages for Moonstone, no doubt, and he took his time to assemble his material and poise his quill over the paper. Even then, Draco could have told him that he would have looked more impressive standing up, or at least sitting at a table. Moonstone had more protections but less sense of style than Draco had thought. "What is the message?" The man even cocked his head like a rat.

"If he wishes to know what happened in the cavern and how to find the person who stole his property," Draco said, "he should contact me."

The man's hand froze on the quill, and he gave Draco a look of helpless terror. "Th-theft?" he asked. "I'm unaware of any of Mr. Dimshine's possessions that have been stolen."

"You would be, wouldn't you," Draco said, and smiled.

The man stood up. "It's in your best interests to inform me of more than that, you know," he said, and his teeth clashed together like some angry squirrel's. "Mr. Dimshine left me in charge here, and he trusts me completely, _completely_. If I were to choose not to pass the message along to him—"

"You would be very, very foolish," Draco finished quietly. "This is stolen property, and do you know how Mr. Dimshine feels about someone stealing from him, or daring to defy him in general? Do you?"

The man shrank away with a little whimper, and began to scribble. He glanced up with fingers and mouth both splattered with ink and said, "Do you—is there anything else that you want to add to the message, Potions master Malfoy?"

"No." Draco stood and reached out to cast the spell that would close the Floo connection undetectably, ensuring there was no way Moonstone's flunky could call him back. "Give him that, in connection with my name."

The man's face flamed like a dark star in the center of the fire for a moment, and then faded, surrounded by whirling green embers. Draco leaned back in his chair for real this time and crossed his legs, sighing.

The first trap, baited and set.

* * *

"You really think you can do this all by yourself?"

Harry felt his spine shiver a little at the look Hermione was giving him, but he smiled at her and reached out for the cup of tea on the table in front of him. Adam had already eaten, a meal of biscuits and toast and a few eggs that Hermione had foisted on Harry, apparently under the impression that it was immoral for all the parts of a meal to come from the same food group or something. Now the boy stood by Harry's side, his hand on Harry's arm, and his solemn, blinking eyes locked on Harry's face. He had said that he trusted Harry to tell him what other people were saying, but he still didn't want to move too far away.

"I don't know that I can," Harry said. "But I know two things." He held up his fingers and folded them down, noting the way Adam watched him. "First, no one else around here can speak Parseltongue, and that means I'm the only lifeline Adam's got. Second, I have to find and take down Moonstone and Schroeder."

"You value that over protecting him?" Hermione flicked her eyes Adam's way rather than nodding at him. They had discovered this morning that he didn't like gestures that pointed at him, any more than he liked drawn wands. Harry could hardly blame him, considering what he must have endured in that cavern.

"I want to do both at the same time," Harry said. "They're both imperative. I want Adam safe. I also want any other children they've done anything like this to safe." He flexed his fingers, and felt as if claws were springing out from sheaths at the end of them. "I won't let anything else like this happen, Hermione. _Nothing_."

Hermione leaned nearer to him, and Harry let her. They were alone in her house. Ron had gone back to work this morning to try and find out any information he could about Campion and Schroeder, and even Moonstone if there was information there to be found, and Hermione didn't have to work today due to completing all her paperwork earlier in the week.

"You don't know what they're saying about you," Hermione said after a moment, after surveying him so thoroughly Harry thought she probably knew what was written on the inside of his eyelids better than he did.

"In the _Prophet_?" Harry nodded. "I think I do. That the stress of the war has finally driven me mad, that my case results should be dug up and looked at again, that those people I testified against or for might be innocent or guilty. It's the same sort of shit that they've been saying about me all along, but now they have something more substantial than rumors to go on."

Hermione's eyes widened. "And you still want to do this?" she asked, nodding at Adam.

Harry looked down. Adam looked up at him, and seemed to unhinge his jaw, like a real snake, to get some of the Parseltongue syllables out. "What is she talking about? Are you going to leave, too?"

"No," Harry told him back, and let his hand rest on Adam's hair before he turned back to Hermione. "Yes," he said. "This is the end. I don't know how long this has been going on, and I'll probably never know the names of all the children they took and stole the magic from, or killed, or tortured." He knew he was pressing down firmly with his hand, on Adam's hair, and made himself relax. "But that doesn't matter. I can only handle the pressures that I know about, and I can only help or avenge the victims that I discover."

"Even if you can never go back?" Hermione whispered.

"If I have to abandon everything that I've built, stop being an Auror, become a fugitive on the run from the Ministry?" Harry held her eyes. It was no more than he had been prepared to do yesterday when he was talking about this step to Malfoy, after all. "This is more important than those things."

Hermione sighed. "I—Harry, I never knew that you took the cases so seriously. You sacrificed your life once, yes, but that was for the entire _world._ I didn't know that you would do it for a child you barely knew."

Harry had the feeling that he was giving the wrong kind of smile, at least the wrong kind to convince Hermione he wasn't mad, but he kept on giving it. "For anyone who needs me," he said. "For someone else, if Adam hadn't been there. For you and Ron, if you had ever needed me to. This is something I can do."

"And it worries you when you can't do something." Hermione's eyes were fixed on him with more understanding than he'd like. "Worries you to _death_, that you can't give everyone everything they want."

Harry shook his head. "What they want might be something I'm unwilling to do, Hermione. This is different. Something needs to be done, and I have the power, and I'm in the right place. That makes me the right person."

Hermione started to answer, but Adam tugged on Harry's sleeve, and he bent down to listen to him. Adam put his mouth close to Harry's ear; Harry didn't think he'd realized yet that other people couldn't understand the Parseltongue he spoke any more than he could understand their English. "Is she going to make you leave? I don't want you to leave."

"I will not leave," Harry said, and was glad of the Parseltongue despite the fact that it just sounded like English to his ears. He was sure it was a little more emphatic, that he could sound stern and impressive in that language in a way he couldn't in English. "I promise you that. She could tie me up and drag me away, and that wouldn't make me leave. That would just make me come back and get angrier."

"Really?" Adam was staring at him with perfectly round eyes. Maybe because he couldn't imagine Harry getting angrier than he had when he had punished the Healers holding Adam down.

"Really." Harry stroked his hair again and smiled at him. "And you trust my magic, don't you? It protected you when I was hurting the people who hurt you."

"I—don't trust it," Adam said, and then looked as if he didn't know whether he should have said that or not, as if he was expecting to be punished from it. Harry gritted his teeth and held the anger back, flinging chains around it when it tried to escape. Bad things happened when he was full of rage like that, and Adam was more important than the thought of what Moonstone and Schroeder had done to him. "I don't know what your magic did. And the magic _they _used on me was horrible." He was whispering by then, looking over his shoulder.

Harry leaned down and hugged him. Adam reached up with one hand and let it hover as if he didn't know what to do with it, then brought it back down.

"I'm sorry," Harry whispered to him. And he was: for what he had made Adam suffer, for what the others had done, for everything Adam had gone through since he was snatched from his Muggle family. "I'll try to protect you but not use that kind of angry magic all the time."

"I lived in a house with a yellow door," Adam said, and his voice was thick. "With my Mum and Dad. Can you get me back there?"

"I'll try," Harry said. And he would, although he knew it was hopeless unless they questioned someone more intimately involved in the matter than the two Aurors they had found were. Malfoy had tried to use Veritaserum on them, but they evidently knew nothing other than that they were well-paid for their time; they didn't even know Moonstone and Schroeder's real identities. In the end, they had _Obliviated_ both "Midnight" and "Rosenbaum" and dropped them on the Ministry's doorstep. "But what happens if we can't find your Mum and Dad? Do you think you could live with me?"

"Here?" Adam looked around Ron and Hermione's house, which, Harry had to admit, had all the characteristic of a real home. Bright windows and big rooms and a huge wooden table and toys for their nieces and nephews.

"No," Harry said, and winced when he saw the look Adam gave him. Damn it, he _wasn't _good at this, and he wished he knew what to say to make everything come out all right. As it was, though, he had to forge ahead and hope that somehow it would come out all right despite his deficiencies. He had told Hermione he was willing to give up everything in his life so far for Adam, now he had to be willing to prove it. "We'd had to find somewhere else to live. Somewhere out of the country, probably. And we'd have to heal you."

Adam gave him another blank look. Harry wondered if that was the natural tactic he adopted in situations he didn't understand or if it had something to do with the trauma he'd suffered.

_I don't know anything about this!_ For a second, he was sure he would start rocking back and forth in the chair, staring at the wall.

He chained the panic just as he had the rage, and reminded himself there were other ways he could feel, more normal ways to be. He had forgotten a lot of them in the wake of the Retrovoyance curse, that was all.

_I don't know anything about this? _

_ Then I'll learn._

"You aren't speaking English," he said. "You know that you can't understand this lady?" He nodded at Hermione across the table, who was watching them with her hand over her mouth. Harry wondered if it was just hearing the language that was difficult for her. From a couple of the looks Malfoy had given him yesterday, he suspected that was the issue for him. "And she can't understand you. You're speaking a different language, and we are the only ones who speak it. We have to find a way to get you to understand other people again."

"We're the only ones?" Adam demanded. "But where did they come up with the language? Who else speaks it?"

"Snakes," Harry admitted, watching closely. He had no idea what kind of outburst would follow that revelation.

But Adam grinned, and looked around as if he thought there might be burrows in the walls. "Snakes? Really? I always wanted to talk to them! They're smarter than my little brother. He still keeps going over and touching the stove after Mum told him not to." He nodded confidentially to Harry. "But snakes always go somewhere else when they get too hot."

Harry grinned, encouraged by the enthusiasm, and said, "Yes, snakes can talk to us. I'll find one for you later."

"'Kay," Adam said, and reached for another biscuit on the edge of the table, popping it into his mouth.

Harry looked up and found Hermione hiding a smile this time. "That seems to work with him," she said. "But I don't know if it will all the time. What did you promise him, to make him grin like that?"

"To find him a snake," Harry said. "He likes the idea."

"If he _likes _the idea, it might make things a little easier." Hermione sighed. "But, Harry, what are you going to do with him when you fight Moonstone and Schroeder? I know you said you wouldn't leave him, but he'd have to stay somewhere safe. What would happen if they tried to recapture him? What would you do?"

"Destroy them," Harry snapped.

"That's a good first plan," Hermione said temperately. Harry had the feeling that she was trying hard not to snap at him, and leaned back to sling an arm around Adam's shoulders. Adam snuggled against him and reached for another biscuit. "But you know that you'll have to do more than that. Fight a battle with a child? Go on an investigation with a child?"

"For what I have to do this afternoon, I can leave him here, if he'll agree," Harry said. "Otherwise, I'll take him with me and hide him under a charm. I think that he knows how to be quiet now."

Hermione's eyes were so narrow Harry wondered how she could see. "What do you have to do this afternoon?"

* * *

"My lord." Draco made a low bow, and he didn't exaggerate it for effect more than half an inch or so.

"That is a good form of address, Malfoy. I am pleased to see that someone like you has good manners. Make sure you keep to them."

The tall, cloaked figure who stepped into the room was probably Moonstone, Draco thought. Risky of him to come like this himself to a meeting, but then, he knew Draco had more than half-knowledge of his real name and motives, the same way that he had more than half-knowledge of Draco's. They would politely dance around the real amount of knowledge in the room, and pretend not to know all the things they could say.

"Yes, my lord," Draco said, and caught a glimpse of the glamoured eyes—blue-black, a disturbing color, as though the pupils had expanded all over them to dominate them—widening. Then he turned his back deliberately and walked to the comfortable chair he'd placed in front of the fireplace, leaving Moonstone to take the even more comfortable one across from him. "Tea?"

"Trust a Potions master's tea, and you were born twice a fool," Moonstone rumbled. His enchanted voice had a disturbing quality, too, like boulders rolling down mountains. Draco wished he could shrug without Moonstone understanding. Better to let him think that Draco's wariness came from the glamours than from the true knowledge of his immense power. "And I was not born so even once."

"I understand, my lord," Draco said, and turned and sat. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw nothing, but he hoped that nothing meant Potter was near enough in his Invisibility Cloak to listen. He'd had some trouble settling the boy in Draco's back room, this time. The boy was terrified at the thought that one of the men who'd hurt him would be near, but he refused to part from Potter. "So. Will you agree to a promise on your magic?"

Moonstone laughed, and this was like a volcano bursting open. "And why should I do that?"

Draco set his fingertips together and stared the man down. "Because the information I can give you _is _that valuable."

Moonstone cocked his head and gave him a skeptical smile, but Draco had learned to read smiles like that long ago. He had Moonstone firmly in his grasp. Now the only thing he need do was make sure that he didn't crush down with his fist and find himself with a palm full of spines.

_And work on your metaphors. You might do that, too._

"We know you were associated with Rosefield," Moonstone said calmly. "We know about your visits with Potter in the week before he went mad and had to be confined. We know everything you could possibly tell us."

"The loss of one of your test subjects?" Draco asked. "A boy who could speak Parseltongue, I believe. And that so surprising, too, when so few Parselmouths exist in the first place, and none of purely Muggle ancestry." He swept another bow to Moonstone, this one from a sitting position. "A formidable discovery, my lord. Well done."

Moonstone's laughter was gone. The glamour he had wound over his face made it seem mask-like, but that lack of the emotion when he had so far freely shown told Draco he had landed a blow.

"Careful," Moonstone breathed. "Careful what you say, what you do. Much rides on this meeting, more than you can know, and I have weapons standing ready outside the house."

Draco was sure he did, although those weapons were probably bought Aurors or the like rather than literal tools. But it didn't matter. He had behind him—he was sure he did—a force of magic and strength like nothing Moonstone could either buy or imagine.

And he had, carried in his breast, curled around his heart, a pounding excitement, a thrill that seemed to travel to the ends of his fingers, filling him with golden sparks. He wondered for the first time what he might have lost out on by not going into politics.

"I know that, my lord," he said, meeting Moonstone's eyes and locking the Occlumency shields he had had no interest or use for in years around his mind. There was the murmuring tide of Potter's thoughts to keep track of, of course, but for once they were almost silent, as Potter concentrated on the drama in front of him. And—was he used to them, now? Were they usual?

Draco was not sure that he would call them that, but he had no time to worry about the terminology now, either, not when he was locked in the middle of his confrontation with Moonstone.

"I would have expected no less of you," he continued. "You have shown that you care about your secrets, and protect them well." He touched his fingers to his lips, as though considering his next words. But he knew what they were. They burned and buzzed in the center of his mind, clear as the flashing chaos of Potter's thoughts.

_Maybe this isn't what I would have had if I went into politics. Maybe this is what I'm like when Potter is around._

Another thought to chase and corral away from his thinking processes for the moment. He had too much else going on to care.

"But you have also shown that you have power," Draco continued. "And with power comes money." He gave Moonstone a thin smile. "Both can be shared."

He didn't miss the subtle way that Moonstone settled further into the chair, though only because he was looking for it. He could practically hear Moonstone's thought processes shifting to click along new tracks. Blackmail would be a long-familiar tool, the handle worn smooth to Moonstone's touch with use.

_Kill? _asked Potter's thoughts.

Draco didn't look around for what might have triggered that impulse, because he knew if anything noteworthy had appeared in the room, Moonstone would have reacted to it, too. It was probably simply Potter's fury at seeing Moonstone so much at ease.

_Not kill, _he answered as strongly as he could, though he knew the lack of a mental bond going the other way meant Potter wouldn't hear him, and waited for Moonstone's decision. No explosions from corners happened in the next few seconds, which Draco reckoned meant Potter had decided to calm down and await events.

Moonstone lounged in his chair now, his eyes unblinking. Draco was sure that was an effect of the glamour, and countered with his own cold face and naturally blinking eyes.

Moonstone at last gave a nod that might have been a challenge or an accepting gesture. "Very well, Mr. Malfoy. Let us negotiate."

And as they spoke, Draco felt the soft tingling settle over him that, he hoped to God, meant Potter was casting the spell to read Moonstone's magical signature, and pull the necessary knowledge from it.

_Let him not sense it. You better not fuck this up, Potter._

Those were the rational thoughts.

But beneath it all still lay that irrational and glittering excitement, rather like—

Rather like the throb in his cock when Potter had finished sucking him, in fact.


	24. In Magic

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twenty-Four—In Magic_

Harry cast the spell slowly. He knew that it would have to be done slowly, that rushing would reveal to Moonstone that he was there and quite likely not succeed in drawing any information out of his magical signature, either.

But it was hard to go slowly, so hard, with his hand shaking on the wand and the knowledge that one of the men who had hurt Adam was in the same room with him. Harry realized that he was taking deep, gasping—but soundless—breaths and made himself hold his breath altogether for a moment, the syllables of the incantation running in his mind only.

_You are not going to mess this up. If you want a chance for vengeance, then you are going to make sure that you do this right._

A blinking of his eyes, open and then shut, and he was calm, and could draw on his power as he needed to. His wand flicked out again, and there it was, the tentative tendril that wandered from him to Moonstone, a glow of blue on the air that faded when it crossed in front of the fire. Harry smiled. There was a reason that Malfoy had had Moonstone sit so near the fire, then. Sometimes it bewildered Harry, how clever Malfoy was, how—

_Think about that later, _he ordered himself sternly as his concentration wavered and the tendril nearly split apart, the blue arms reaching out with as if they had been startled into jumping. _You have to cast the spell first. You have to make sure that you know everything he knows about those children._

And there it was, the first information flowing, flowering, down the tendril and into Harry's mind. He caught his breath, and his balance wavered for a moment, one hand flying out so that he could support himself against the wall. That made the Cloak rustle, but no more, and, involved in the negotiation with Malfoy, Moonstone did nothing more than turn his head, once, his blue-black eyes far away.

Malfoy hadn't described exactly what the information would be like. Harry had thought of memories, images, even sensations; that was the way he had sometimes picked up on the memories of the dead through the Retrovoyance curse, after all.

But no, this was a cold voice speaking in his ears, and words appearing in front of his eyes, curling gold letters like some of the official Ministry reports Harry had seen in his time as an Auror. Scrawling by, making his balance waver, making him bite his tongue as he thought of the consequences of this if Moonstone should happen to pay attention just now…

But that wasn't going to happen, Harry told himself. Moonstone was sensitive to magical signatures, yes, but that usually meant he would be blind to what happened to his own, Malfoy had taught him, since he was so involved in reading others'. He wouldn't know what happened to him even if he recognized that something was.

And Harry had to pay attention to the information unfolding in front of him, or take a large chance that it would be lost forever. He blinked, shook his head, and refocused his attention.

_The children enchanted to lend their power to objects. The children drained to give their magic to Muggles. The Muggles bound to give their power over. The Muggles taken and turned and taught, the Imperius used only when unnoticed. It does not work well on children, with their impulses and their less refined sense of obedience and rules._

Harry hissed beneath his breath. That explained the robe he had heard whispering Parseltongue in the room where he and Malfoy had hidden. Somehow, they could give the magical abilities to Muggle children, and _then _take the abilities from those children and apply them to objects. And some of the other things Harry was seeing…

Moonstone and Schroeder had found a way to transfer magic from other people to themselves after all. They took it from magical children first, gave it to Muggle children, and then took it for themselves or other people, or applied it to objects. Something about the way that it passed through a magical core to a completely non-magical person changed it, and made it no longer subject to the restrictions that the direct process of stealing another person's power had always had.

_They'll be powerful in and of themselves, soon. It won't matter that the process takes time; they can move all the magic they need from multiple children, as long as they're willing to kidnap and kill and torture. And of course they're willing to do that._

Harry held himself still, and didn't make a move that could have revealed him. He wanted to, he wanted to kill Adam's tormentor, but he was no longer mindless because of the Retrovoyance curse or anything else. He was a responsible adult who owed his life and freedom to Malfoy and Ron. He would repay the debt.

Then came the information he had been waiting for, the list of locations where they were holding kidnapped children. They might be magical or Muggle; Harry didn't know. He shuddered as that cold voice spoke, because it sounded so much like Voldemort that it made evil memories whirl around in his head like leaves in a windstorm.

The names of the buildings and towns were unfamiliar, but Harry didn't care. He opened his mind to them, memorized them the way he could memorize a witness's exact words and facial expressions and gestures during certain interviews. He would have them again when he needed them.

Some of the last few places were in London, or at least sounded as if they could be. Harry smiled, and felt his face pinch. He would _enjoy _the raids there, with a violent enjoyment that he doubted any of Moonstone's people could comprehend before they felt Harry's magic smashing into their faces.

"Who is there?"

Harry froze the way he once had when he had to hide in a pile of rubbish with Death Eaters looking for him. He was sure he hadn't breathed, hadn't sighed, hadn't chuckled at his last thought, but Moonstone had risen to his feet and scanned the shadows, his hand on his wand.

Draco stood, too, and his face was smooth with surprise. "My lord?" he asked. "You heard something?"

"I know I did," Moonstone said. "I know I felt something." His eyes traveled past the corner where Harry crouched under the Invisibility Cloak and locked on the door to the back room where Harry had left Adam. He took a long, heavy step forwards, his robe swaying behind him.

Harry rose soundlessly to his feet, his breath caught in the center of his chest, his hands clenched near his heart. He wouldn't attack unless he had to, he didn't want to, but if Moonstone tried to go _near _Adam's room, if he once thought he would get away with hurting him again, then Harry would strike. There was no doubt of that. Protecting Adam was a solemn promise that came before everything else.

Draco sighed in the manner of someone who disliked having his business deals interrupted, and reached out to lay a hand on Moonstone's arm. Harry admired him for that. He knew _he _couldn't have touched Moonstone with any semblance of normality at the moment. "My lord? If you sit down and give me time to engage my wards, they should tell me whether anyone foreign is in my flat. If you—"

Moonstone turned and held his wand against Draco's throat. Draco went with that snake-stillness Harry had sometimes seen him display as they hovered together above the Quidditch pitch, locked together in pursuit of the Snitch. His eyes never moved from Moonstone's glamoured face.

"You could easily key someone into your wards if you wanted them to be here," Moonstone whispered. "What have you _done_, Malfoy?"

"Invited you here, and tried to speak to you," Draco said, still without batting an eye. "Does that mean you're going to kill me?" He reached up and let his fingers hover a few inches above Moonstone's wand, "Let it be for the presumption of having no idea what you're talking about, rather than the presumption of inviting you. That, I could not have anticipated would be presumption, not when you did me the honor of accepting the invitation and coming here, past those selfsame wards that you distrust now."

Moonstone hesitated, forced to deal with the complexity of Draco's sentences, and Harry used the distraction well. He eased towards the room that held Adam, already planning a way to break past the wards that would open a hole in them and knit the hole shut immediately. Then Moonstone might search the house to his heart's content and still find out that he had been wrong, and Draco—well, Harry would have to trust Draco to take care of himself. From the way he was staring at Moonstone now, he seemed to have no doubt that he could.

"No," Moonstone said then, and something about the tone of his voice, or the way he shifted his wand to press the flat tip against Draco's throat, or the way he shifted his weight, made Draco's lips turn white. Harry paused, his heart going so fast it sounded like a distant hum of music. "I do not believe it. You may have invited me here to question me, to capture me, or for an honest trade, but you know too much, and what you do not know you shall tell me. _Impe_—"

Harry had no idea what Draco's resistance to the Unforgivable Curses might be like, and no time to question himself. He attacked.

* * *

It was like watching the air come to life.

Draco heard the Curse forming on Moonstone's lips and had time for a moment's calculation, and a moment's fierce regret that they had not found some way of disguising Potter's magical signature after all. That was what Moonstone had to be reacting to, the strength of it, though he didn't seem to know that himself.

That was all he had time for, and he knew Moonstone had spent too long talking when the air turned into a Cloak and a moving Potter, and Potter flung the Cloak over Moonstone's head and then kicked him in the middle of the back while drawing the Cloak tight around his head and shoulders.

Moonstone might have killed Draco in that moment, if he could have managed a nonverbal spell with one incantation already in his mind, and with his nerves and senses reeling under the shock of a sudden assault. As it was, he staggered to his knees, and Draco rolled out of the way, snatching his own wand up as he went. Things were going too badly to salvage with exactly the plan they had had at first, and so he wasn't going to argue that Potter had fucked up. They had to deal with what was in front of them.

Moonstone cast a spell that made the inside of the Cloak blaze briefly, but didn't cut through it, or burn it. Potter laughed full and deep, and whispered a spell that made Moonstone's arms jerk helplessly into the air. From there, Potter snatched Moonstone's wand and stuck it deep into a robe pocket that sealed shut with a snap. Draco opened his mouth to ask why he hadn't simply used the _Expelliarmus _spell, and then shut it again. Because that was Harry Potter's signature spell, of course, and Potter had no interest in telling Moonstone who he was dealing with.

Moonstone still flailed about, but Potter planted one foot in the small of his back and kicked out with the other, pressing down and holding him still so that his other foot could swing in and hit his ribs. Draco didn't hear the splintering of bone, which was a shame, but Moonstone wheezed, and at the same moment, Potter whispered, "_Obliviate Incantatem. Stupefy._"

The Cloak-covered bundle on the floor, so thoroughly wrapped by now that Draco wasn't even sure where its head was, slumped over. Draco lowered his wand and stared at the panting Potter, who studied his prisoner closely. Not as much pride as Draco had thought, then, to trust to the strength of his spells without checking them. Or perhaps he wasn't as arrogant without the influence of the dead dogging his every step.

It was then that Draco realized he had heard nothing from Potter's mind ever since the attack began, not even the sleek deadliness of the thoughts that had appeared when he began the slaughter in the caverns. The thoughts were creeping back now as Draco listened, small chattering rivers once more beginning to flow to the sea and saying things like _Moonstone is down, _and _Got him!_ and _So glad, _but for a few seconds, their streambeds had been dry.

_If he ever attacks me like that, then I shall have no warning._

Draco attempted to put that thought away, then reminded himself in what direction the potions-inspired bond flowed and which direction it didn't, and said, "So. What was the spell you cast just now?"

"The _Obliviate Incantatem?_" Potter blinked at him, eyes the shade of green sometimes found in sunset skies. "It takes away his memory of the incantation of any spell he performed within the last two days. He won't be Apparating away from us, at least, or using the Imperius Curse."

Draco swallowed and shook his head. "That's not possible. I mean—someone will notice that if we try to prove he did something, or get information from him and then set him free again."

Potter smiled, a bright wolf's smile. "No, they won't. The incantation is nearly the same as for a Memory Charm, but it's not actually that closely related. It'll fade off within a month. A shorter period of time, if I will it."

"This is one of the spells you invented?"

"Modified," Potter said, with a small shrug, and pulled his Cloak away from Moonstone, folding it up tenderly to tuck into a pocket. "I found the basic description in a book of spells, but it seemed the wizard who made it up could never get it to work properly. I found the key in the strength of my will."

_Can resist the Imperius Curse, _said his thoughts, all chiming together now in smugness, if streams could be smug.

Draco thought he had known that before, but it was good to be reminded of the knowledge. And how powerful Potter was. And that he had spells they could use to their advantage, when he was not insane.

It was _not _good to be reminded of the throb between his legs, of what Potter had done to him a few days past, or to think of what he could do if he ever focused properly on Draco, instead of just as a means to an end.

This thought, Draco did tuck away for later, and he nodded to Moonstone. "So. What do you plan to do with him?"

"Interrogate him," Potter said. "I doubt the Imperius Curse would work on him, and for all we know, he may have made himself immune to Veritaserum. Can you do that?" he added suddenly, cocking his head like a dog.

It _was_ good to be reminded that Potter did not know everything, and might have to rely on his expert, resident Potions master for some advice. Draco nodded. "With a few experimental potions, which Moonstone might or might not have access to, but would certainly have the gold for." He stared at Moonstone, and shook his head. "In the meantime, how do you plan to keep him imprisoned with a child in tow?"

Potter looked at the ceiling. "Hermione asks me questions like that, and now you," he muttered. He cast a Lightening Charm on Moonstone, bound his hands and feet with conjured ropes, and scooped him up over a shoulder. "I do have an extensive house I've inherited with rooms that can turn easily into traps, and a loyal house-elf who will keep anyone I bring him bang in place."

"And give him the chance to realize where he is, and who you are?" Draco worked up what he felt was quite an impressive sneer and launched it at Potter. "Why would you wish to do such a thing?"

Potter sighed. "If he only ever sees the inside of one room, then he won't realize. And if you think I'm unskilled with glamours and spells that he's never heard of—"

"It is an unacceptable risk," Draco interrupted, quietly but firmly. "I merely refer you to that."

Potter shrugged with the shoulder that didn't hold Moonstone. "So is anything else—letting him go at this point to tell someone else what we may inadvertently have revealed, or taking the chance of an interrogation here, or going somewhere else. And you can be sure that he's not going to see me as I really am. And I won't give him a chance to hurt Adam." He glanced at the door that hid the boy.

Draco nodded. He could accept that, at least. He marshaled his next arguments, and then they fled as Potter turned to stare at him.

"And you," Potter whispered.

Draco frowned. "Pardon? You believe I would wish to hurt the boy?"

Potter shook his head, the faintest rush of a smile curling along his lips, while his thoughts chattered something wordless about happiness. "I meant that I wouldn't allow Moonstone to hurt you, either, no matter how much he might wish to."

Draco paused. Then he said, "If this is about my not being able to protect myself, _you_ will wish that you had not said that."

Potter sighed and rolled his eyes as though he wondered what he was doing here. "I'm trying to tell you a simple truth. I know you can protect yourself. I know you can help me. I know you can protect me, even. You've proven yourself more than skilled at all of those so far. I just want to return the favor."

Draco considered that. It was not something he was accustomed to someone offering him, which was one reason he felt compelled to hesitate. But Potter's face had a bright and burning sincerity Draco did not think he could feign, and all his thoughts sang together in chorus, thoughts of protection and Draco's name and offerings. Draco did not think he understood the last bit, but otherwise, they were congruent with Potter's words.

"Very well," he said. "Then I will allow you to return the favor, and only insist on accompanying you to your house under a glamour."

Potter scowled. "And your business won't suffer if you shut up your shop and come to stay with me for a while?" Moonstone shifted and moaned, and Potter cast a charm to send him into a deeper sleep without looking at him, and without words. "Like I said," he added, perhaps catching sight of Draco's expression, "I know what you've done to help us. I just don't want to cause any more harm than I can help."

Draco snorted. "There is harm that I can afford, and harm I wish to court, and harm I wish to avoid," he said. "This fits into the first two categories. I am entitled to a holiday after all my hard work."

Potter's smile cut like a comet. "Of course you are."

After that, it didn't take them long. Potter cast more spells to ensure that Moonstone wouldn't wake and would be dazed and suggestive when he did, waited for Draco to lower the wards, and Apparated to his own house. Then he came back for Adam, while Draco prepared himself to inform his assistants that the shop would be closed for the next week and attended to the few commissions he still owed. Not as many, lately. He had entered a period where he wasn't doing much brewing for anyone else, and his own experiments had slowed, as well.

_Hardly surprising, when they must wait on Potter's handiwork._

But when he listened to the contented song in the back of his head, and when Potter smiled at him when he was ready to leave and reached for his arm to Side-Along him, he hardly cared.

* * *

They didn't understand. Draco and Hermione and Ron and the rest of them. Adam _really _didn't understand, but Harry could hardly blame him, not when he didn't speak English and had been born Muggle.

He was gone. There was no coming back from this. He had told Hermione that he was willing to give up his life for Adam, to start a new one and go away if he had to, but what he had done to Moonstone had clinched that he _had_ to.

He might have made the wrong decision, taking down Moonstone when he threatened Draco. It was possible—barely possible, said Harry's Auror instincts that had read Moonstone's eyes and hands, but still—that Moonstone might have backed off and not cast the spell Harry had felt him getting ready to cast. That buzz in his magical signature was distinctive; Harry had felt it in the air moments before some spectacularly nasty death curses had flown.

Either way, he had chosen to lighten Moonstone of dignity and consciousness, and that was not something he would forget. If they let him go, he would figure out who had done this to him, or crawl into a hole and die trying. If they let him go with a Memory Charm, he would never stop until he had figured out how to dig underneath it. If they killed him, then Harry would face charges of murder.

Harry had exiled himself from the Ministry and his job with this action. He had been willing before, and that was a good thing. It meant he could face the new life with equanimity, rather than fretting and squealing over something he couldn't change.

So he spoke gently as he settled Adam into a bedroom that was brighter and cleaner than most of them on the first floor, and led Draco up to a second-floor one with a bow and no words, and checked on Moonstone in his prison, without much more than an occasional flinch of wonder in the back of his mind. Everything had changed, but he had thought it might.

He watched the way Draco watched him, and wondered. He checked the wards and the traps on Moonstone's room, and set up the spell that he wasn't going to tell anyone else about because it was a last resort in case Moonstone escaped, and wondered. He reassured Adam that he wouldn't leave him, and cast spells that ought to find any magic on him and didn't find any, and wondered.

He wondered if he would manage to keep Ron and Draco and even Hermione from possibly going away into this exile and never coming back, too.

He wondered if he would find Adam's family. He couldn't remember his last name or the first names of his parents, and Harry didn't know if they would ever locate anything more to go on. Besides, it was useless taking him back to his family, found or not, if he only spoke Parseltongue. Possible imprisonment in an orphanage was the kindest fate Harry could imagine for him in that case.

He wondered when Malfoy had become Draco.


	25. Interrogation

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twenty-Five—Interrogation_

Potter stood outside the room where he had imprisoned Moonstone for a moment, his eyes closed. Then he opened them, turned his head slightly away as though he didn't want Draco to see his face, and kicked the door to the side. It hit the wall with a thud and came spinning back—only for a wave of wandless magic pouring out from Potter to bring it to a shuddering halt.

Draco strode in behind Potter, watching the way Potter's dramatic Auror robes swirled around him, and his boots thumped on the floor, shining more than they should have if he had only applied polish instead of glamour to them. He wore a glamour on his face as well, of course, so that Moonstone could not connect the Auror who had kidnapped him with the supposedly imprisoned Harry Potter. But it was his body that shouted the message, and Draco doubted it was anywhere near as false as his features and expression.

Potter would kill if he had to. Moonstone might bargain with them, or try to resist, or delay, but he need not doubt that Potter would slit his throat.

Moonstone, bound in a system of chains that allowed him to move about the room and reach a chamberpot in the corner but not pick up the pot or reach anything he could use as a weapon—or bring his arms above his head—sat on the floor, awaiting them. Draco shot a quick glance around the room, seeing the peeling paper and moldering tapestries and enormous piles of grey dust in the corners, and arched an eyebrow, wondering how Potter had convinced his house-elf to leave this room alone.

"My partners will find me," Moonstone said in a lighter and more pleasant voice than he had used with Draco, his head cocked as if he were watching the antics of a particularly clever dog. "And then you will wish that you had done otherwise, when it came to me."

"Many people have promised me that over the years." Potter had used a spell that made his voice warble and waver up and down the scale, instead of locking it into a more human register. Draco saw the effect that had on Moonstone, the slight widening of his eyes and then the settling of his shoulders, as he realized he was dealing with someone who didn't want to preserve a façade of dignity or normality. "None of them have succeeded in making me wish otherwise yet." He conjured a chair with a flip of his hand that might look wandless, although Draco knew he carried his wand in the sleeve of the hand that had done it. It was enough to make Moonstone start, at least. Potter braced his knees on either side of the chair and leaned forwards, his smile small and hard on his changed face, which had sallow skin and dark eyes and brown hair. "You might have seen my partner before."

Draco wore the glamour Potter had used as Rosefield. Moonstone's eyes caught on him, and stopped. The next moment, he shook his head. "You are not the same man," he said.

"He need not be," Potter said. "He knows everything that happened in the cavern, and what we don't know, you're going to tell us." He turned the chair so its back was to Moonstone and sat down on it, his arms hanging comfortably over the top. Draco thought it best to take up his station behind Potter. Now that he considered it, he realized that the wallpaper and tapestries were probably scene decoration, the glamours Potter had talked about using on his house, but he didn't want to touch them. Just in case. "You might as well, you know," Potter added, when Moonstone started to draw in a breath. "You can lie and bluster and try to hide it, but you are going to tell us."

"And you will dose me with Veritaserum if I don't, I suppose," Moonstone said, in a drawl that Draco didn't think was feigned.

The words told more than he probably imagined, however, at least to a Potions master. _Yes, he took the experimental potions that guarantee an immunity to Veritaserum. _Draco moved forwards and bent down towards Potter as if restraining him from using violence, enough to hiss the few words of his conclusion.

Potter nodded without any form of surprise, and simply went on staring at Moonstone. Enough time passed that Draco's feet grew numb, but he wouldn't shift his weight, not when that might "prove" to Moonstone that they were weak. Moonstone opened his mouth in an enormous yawn that echoed around the room like the mewing of an immense cat.

When he closed his mouth, he was in agony. His teeth barely missed his tongue, and he drooled down his robe as he cried out. Or Draco reckoned he was, at least, but no sound emerged from his throat.

The pain left him as abruptly as it had come. Potter still sat on his chair on the faux-casual position, his hand resting on his wand and his eyes wide and innocent. There was no sign that he had cast the curse, and no sign that he would do it again. Moonstone, wiping away the spittle with the back of his hand, stared at him.

_What was that? _Draco wondered. _Not the Cruciatus Curse, or it would have been more severe. And after the discussion we had about Dark Arts—although perhaps the wards on the house keep the Ministry from tracking it here—_

But his potions bond with Potter would still have warned him. And the thoughts in the back of Potter's head did no more than murmur. Potter had cast the spell without the vicious emotions Draco knew necessary to power the Dark Arts. He decided to remain still and observe for right now, keeping his hands folded behind his back.

"What—what was that?" Moonstone asked for him when he could speak again, and had wiped the spittle off on the hem of his robe furthest from his face. His chains clinked as he returned his hand to the side, and his attention was all for Potter. _At least he believes we're serious now, _Draco thought, and restrained a chuckle.

"Like it?" Potter's voice was low and modest, the way Draco imagined he might give an interview with someone approaching "the most famous Auror in Britain" about one of his cases. "It's something small. Something special. It's a spell that finds some of the pain you've caused in others and revisits it on you. It wouldn't do anything if you'd caused no pain, and it only works on the physical level, not the mental level. That's the distinction the Ministry makes between Dark pain curses and ones it doesn't regulate, did you know? The Cruciatus Curse became illegal in the first place because it can drive one insane after enough minutes under it. Not many people know that."

_Potter, you fool, _Draco thought, and then let the thought trail off, because he had no doubt Potter was telling the truth and his light, pleasant tone was no joke. He had spent a moment readying himself before entering the room, yes. Draco had thought it was to put on a more convincing act.

Now he wondered how deeply Potter had gone into himself to find the strength to perform a pain spell calmly, without rejoicing and without cruelty. Just doing it. _Only _doing it, action and explanation and no more.

Draco felt a painful sensation jolt through him, so diffuse he could not have explained whether it was astonishment, or anger, or sadness, or arousal.

He considered the last one and rejected it as Moonstone said, "I did not torture anyone. I did not agree to do so. I never have."

"The spell has a less than literal definition of _cause_," Potter said, his tone so gentle it might have been an apology. "If you gave the orders for the torture, then it is the same. If you ordered those children kidnapped, their magic drained or their bodies cast in the street if they proved of no use to you, then you feel it. The spell doesn't affect you if you have no connection to what has happened, of course. Of course not."

Moonstone spent a moment in what might have been deep contemplation of Potter's words, though watching the way his hands clenched down on his bonds, Draco doubted that was the truth. Then he said, "All I need do is tell the truth after I leave, and there are people who will spend their lives hunting you down and destroying you."

"I have no doubt," Potter said. "If we left you alive to tell the truth, you would do exactly that. But if you continue to lie and do not cooperate, we have no reason to leave you alive."

Moonstone paused again. Draco could watch the emotions changing in his eyes, building up. Not panic, not when he had been in these kinds of situations before, survived, and no doubt believed he would again.

But realization that Potter was not playing by the usual code, the kind where those who kidnapped someone of Monstone's stature realized who they were dealing with and gave him courtesy and acknowledgment of his power even when he was captive. Potter did not care, and he would break the rules and continue not to care if Moonstone pushed him.

"Very well," Moonstone said, and seemed to transform himself into someone who would not mind answering their questions. No one ever had said that he was stupid, Draco remembered, only greedy. He leaned back on his elbows and gave Potter what he probably thought was a carefree smile. "Could I request some food and a little more comfort in the matter of my bonds? That would ensure I am not distracted by physical pain as I am speaking."

"I already spelled a Nutrient Potion into your stomach," Potter said, his voice and face not changing. "And the bonds will not loosen as long as you intend to attack me, which you do."

Moonstone's smile faded. Then he said, "You would still find me more cooperative if you attended to me."

"I'm sure I would," Potter said. "But the truth is all the cooperation we need."

Moonstone glanced at Draco, as if he thought he might overrule Potter's decision. Deciding on his role in a moment, Draco lifted his hands and shook his head. Potter caught the gesture and gave him a faint smile, then focused on Moonstone again. Draco, with enough free time at the moment to listen to Potter's thoughts, heard _Smarter than he looks with that glamour on, _and wondered if it referred to him or Moonstone.

Not that he would mind if it referred to him. Of course his natural features and voice expressed his intelligence better than any glamour could.

"Very well," Moonstone said, and his voice was low and charged. "We made the greatest magical discovery of the century, using only the notes of a mad old Potions master that no one else was paying heed to. Yes, it involves the deaths of Muggle children, and we knew we would be turned into pariahs if we let someone else know the source. But consider the Healing we could accomplish. The magical abilities we could bring back that have been lost for centuries. The way we could diminish the power of someone who had the chance to become a Dark Lord."

Draco didn't think Moonstone noticed, both because he was facing Potter and because he was becoming caught up in the story he spun, using words rather than observation to make Potter listen to him. But Potter's back had gone through a ripple and then stiffened when Moonstone had spoken the last sentence. Perhaps someone else had once expressed the opinion that Potter had power great enough to become a Dark Lord and should be stripped of it.

"If you have the secret of the method well in hand, why are there failed experiments?" Potter asked, and his voice descended to a neutral hum. His thoughts whispered, _Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead._

One word repeated over and over was more disturbing than Draco had seen Potter in some little time. He crossed his legs, not at all incidentally pushing his knee into the middle of Potter's back.

Potter blinked, which Moonstone seemed to catch, but not to interpret the right way. He smiled a bit and nodded. "If you think it over, you will see why this is a stupid question," he said. "The method is young. We have taken it from the notes of a Potions master who was not sane in the conventional sense of the term." He leaned forwards and lowered his voice as if he thought there was someone else in the house who might steal his secrets. Well, for all Draco knew, he might actually think that, given that the glamours on the house and Potter and Draco would prevent him from knowing where he was and who had taken him. "There are experiments proceeding now that do not need any second thought, however. We have the method well in hand by now. And we have more than enough willing subjects."

"How interesting," Potter said with a calm tone that Draco didn't think he could have bettered himself, while his thoughts battered and shrieked _Destroy him!_ against the inside of his skull. "I had the impression most of your subjects were not willing."

Moonstone's glance went to Draco. Draco blinked innocently back. Of course, he wore the glamour of the face that Moonstone would have last seen on the body destroying the cavern. He said nothing, though, and his silence seemed at last to drive Moonstone back on the answer that he would have to make to Potter. "The people who contribute the magic are not always willing," he conceded. "But those who receive it from us are, and understand there might be some risk."

"And the wills and opinions of the donors are not worth considering?" Potter had a sweetness in his voice that was more dangerous than the thoughts muttering to Draco now, which had gone wordless.

"They are not old enough to understand the greater purpose," Moonstone said. "But I have no doubt that many of them would agree, if they were older and could know. Of course, older, they would be useless to us."

"And the donors who know nothing about our world, and no notion of what they are taking into themselves?" Potter leaned forwards on his chair, and from Moonstone's slight smile, Draco knew he was thinking that his words were working at last and he would convince Potter. Draco was the one who saw the muscles along Potter's spine clench again and knew he was just barely holding himself back from Moonstone's throat.

Draco pressed his knee harder into Potter's back. The muscles quivered and relaxed against him, but Potter was still waiting for a response from Moonstone.

"They are, ultimately, nothing more than tools," Moonstone admitted, only he did not speak in the tone of voice that would have showed he considered it an admission. "They would choose differently if they could know and understand us, but they cannot."

"They are children," Potter said, and his voice came out low and vicious enough to make Moonstone's dark-blue glamoured eyes narrow.

"They are animals," he snapped back. "Compared to us, in knowledge of the world and intelligence and ability, they are. And do you object when animals are slaughtered for your table? Do you think they would die willingly if they understood their purpose? Or do you eat the meat and lean back in satisfaction?"

Potter went still, eyes fastened to Moonstone's face, and his thoughts in Draco's head through the bond said, _That's what he thinks. That's why nothing will convince him. This isn't an argument made up to let him live with it. He believes it._

Potter's tactics changed. A small smile caused his lips to quiver and curl up, and he cocked his head. "I don't believe that about animals, no," he answered. "But neither do I believe Muggles are animals." He dropped a taunting little note into his voice that required-no, demanded-that Moonstone try to convert him.

Draco glared at the back of Potter's head as Moonstone sat up in his bonds. This was the kind of time he _would _have liked the Potions bond to run both directions, so he could send his disapproval into the back of Potter's mind and make it strike home. _What are you doing, you idiot? Do you have _any _bloody idea?_

Moonstone smiled and cocked his head. "We have to think of them as that," he said. "Because they cannot share in our lives, in our perceptions of the world. Nothing makes sense to them, they do not see _us_ and our lives, without magic."

"We could try to show them," Potter said, barely moving his lips. Because Draco was watching for it, he saw the movement when his wand began to surge in his sleeve, but he couldn't make out the fluid nature of the gestures, or at least they didn't look familiar. "I've heard some people suggest that, that we reach out and teach Muggles about us, and fuck the Statute of Secrecy."

Moonstone blinked, at what Draco imagined was the language, but didn't give in. "We need the Statute of Secrecy to keep our worlds separate. Just because they can't understand us doesn't mean they couldn't destroy us. They are powerful. Powerful, dangerous brutes. Becoming stronger would be a good thing in another way, would keep us alive through the war between our two nations that is coming someday."

"A war?" Potter asked. His voice was weak. He sagged back in his chair, and his hand left his wand. Draco thought he saw a brief tendril of blue-grey light, hard to make out against the grey background of the walls.

He had seen that before. It was the spell to read someone else's magical signature, which Potter had performed once before in Draco's flat.

_He can't think that he'll get anything usable out of Moonstone now, surely? Moonstone is paying attention to him and must have seen that, and he'll feel-_

Then Draco stopped. He still thought that Moonstone, last time, had not sensed the spell, but the strength of Potter's own magical signature, which there was no way to disguise. And he had a distraction, now, this intricate conversation and the weak arguments that Potter was trying to put up against it. It was the perfect time for Potter to learn anything that he hadn't learned from him.

Which meant he had decided this interrogation was useless to gain actual information, or at least to persuade Moonstone to cooperate fully with them. Which must mean he intended to kill Moonstone at some point in the future.

Draco half-shut his eyes, and wondered for a moment if he was growing too used to Potter, to be able to tell things about him with a single glimpse of a gesture that even his friends might have trouble learning.

But perhaps it had something more to do with growing used to the chattering potion-bond in the back of his head. When he listened, Potter's thoughts emerged as full and distinct voices, but that wasn't always the case; when he focused elsewhere, the thoughts blended into one sound, and Draco might pick up information from them without consciously being aware of it.

That meant something. That meant something Draco wanted to tell Potter as soon as possible, because he wished to have some of that intense attention focused on him, and that was enough of a reason.

For now, he remained patient and silent, let Moonstone think he was the inferior one or the intimidated one in this situation, and listened to Moonstone's useless words of attempted conversion and the far more interesting ones in the back of his own head.

* * *

_He'll never change, and he'll poison the information we get any way he can._

Harry felt a cloak of peace drop over him. He didn't want to use pain spells on Moonstone, and he saw now that he wouldn't have to. They would have no lasting effect; the man would recover from them and decide, once again, that Harry wouldn't dare kill someone as valuable and powerful as him. The best thing was to get the information they needed by other means and decide later what to do with Moonstone. He was no longer the most important bargaining chip they had.

The arguments flowed away, and meanwhile the cold voice in Harry's head and the gold letters before his eyes told him everything he needed to know. He memorized as much as he could, but wasn't that concerned. When he put the memory in a Pensieve, he expected he would see everything he needed to know.

Or else he would use one of the potions Hermione had told him about, one that could make a person relive a memory perfectly, down to the smells and sensations of touch. One way or the other, they would have this.

He was far more conscious of Draco behind him, through the cold voice, and the knee that rested along his spine. Harry was doing his best not to shiver or flinch because of that, however. He knew they had certain things to talk about when the interrogation was done, and he only hoped they were the same things he wanted to talk about.

Moonstone wound down at last, and Harry nodded and rose to his feet. "You've given me a lot to think about," he said. "You'll have food in a short time." It would be food of no very great quality, but not poisoned and enough to keep the man alive. Harry felt that was all he was owed right now. "In the meanwhile, think about other ways that you can be useful to us." With a flick of his wand in his pocket, he ended the spell to read one's magical signature, since he didn't want it still active when he was out of the room.

"You could be more powerful than you are now," Moonstone said softly, eyes narrowed as if he could make out Harry's magic dancing on the air like a heat haze. "Someone like you would be welcome in our ranks."

Harry gave him a non-smile and stepped out of the room, then spent a few minutes making sure the locking spells on it were secure, and the trap spells in the corridor outside. Even if Moonstone managed to escape his room, he wouldn't manage to escape the house. Harry had too many failsafes and traps, and an order for Kreacher to appear if he had to and hold Moonstone. The house-elf had promised, ecstatic that he might get to wrestle one of his master's enemies. Harry thought the Battle of Hogwarts had given him a taste for action.

Draco's hand settled on his wrist. "Remove the glamours," he whispered. "And come to my room."

Harry glanced at him, turned away from the face of Rosefield whom he had once seen in a mirror, and swallowed. Then he nodded, and cast the spell that removed the glamours. Draco's hold on his wrist never faltered as he brought Harry down the corridor.

When Draco had shut the door behind him, Harry glanced around. The room had more furniture than he remembered it having; Draco must have conjured his own. Harry sat down on a sturdy stool and waited.

Draco locked the door quietly but comprehensively. Then he faced Harry, and Harry smothered a gasp at the feverish shine in his eyes.

"We are going to talk," Draco said.

Overwhelmed, and beginning to feel overall that what they wanted to talk about might overlap, Harry nodded, and watched Draco smile, sweet and dangerous and slow, as they began.


	26. In the Bedroom

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twenty-Six-In the Bedroom_

Draco half-closed his eyes and stood there a moment. He had Harry Potter where he wanted him, _finally_, not moving, surrendering to Draco and agreeing that they should speak about the twisted mesh of ideas and thoughts and desires that surrounded them.

The thought of it made Draco's heart pound and his mouth flood with saliva.

He spent a minute more with eyes closed, to control his reaction. Then he opened them and studied Potter, poised on the edge of his chair. His legs were folded, his arms clasped around his knees as though he wanted to compress them and make himself smaller still. His eyes blinked frequently, but they focused on Draco's, and they were still the most ridiculously compelling shade of green that Draco had encountered.

His thoughts murmured _Have to do this, _and _It might be okay, _and _I don't think he would have invited me here if he wasn't serious._

"You're right," Draco said finally, choosing to answer a thought instead of Potter's words. He leaned forwards, and Potter settled back into his chair as though striving for an escape. Draco felt his tight muscles relax; he hadn't even realized how much he had needed to see a gesture like that, some sign that Potter was not in perfect control. The thoughts told him that, but the thoughts, this time, weren't enough. "I am serious. And I think the first thing we need to speak about is how you sucked me." The words came out without faltering.

It was more than Potter could manage. The thoughts in the back of his head scattered like frightened pigeons, and his face flushed red, and his eyes immediately turned away from Draco's as he tried to mutter something.

"I know that you did it to settle yourself and expel the violence," Draco said, before Potter could exasperate him further. "I know that. It worked. I appreciate that, and am glad that it did, or both I and Adam might have died of the unleashed magic thundering through you."

It had been a good move to mention Adam. It made Potter's eyes focus on him again, for one thing. He licked his lips and said, "I-that's good. I'm glad you understand that. And I can apologize if that's what you'd like." He was studying Draco now with slow blinks of his eyes, and the one coherent thought in the back of his head said, _If he understands, why bring it up? _

Draco smiled. His merciless smiles might not impress Moonstone and his like, but the way that the color fled from Potter's face and then came tumbling back was a charm to make up for that. "I don't want an apology. I want a repeat."

Potter's eyes flashed like the storm that was so often going on in his head, and he rose to his feet, reaching out as though to catch Draco's hips. Draco snatched the nearest hand and spun Potter with it at the end of their arms, smashing him into the wall. Potter coughed in shock, and Draco leaned an elbow on his throat to keep his attention. Potter's eyes widened, his legs starting to tense, and Draco leaned nearer and slid his thigh between Potter's. He thought Potter might have groaned, but he considered the elbow in his throat and wisely didn't.

"The same action," Draco said. "Not the same emotion, nor the same reasons. Focus on _me_. Give me what _I _want. You were so set on doing just that a moment ago, when you thought I wanted an apology. Why not now?" Because Potter's head was shaking slowly, and the multiple voices in the back of his head became one, not to kill but to agree on the thought, _He's insane._

"Because you have no reason to want that," Potter said. "And because an apology is easier than a blowjob."

Draco laughed a little. "Honesty at last," he said. "At least in the last part. In the first, you cannot know my motives." He eased up on the pressure on Potter's throat, since he was starting to pant, and not in an attractive way. "I want you focused on _me._ You have focused on the dead, on Adam, on Moonstone, on your friends. But you have thought little of me except when I tried to prevent you from doing something. Now I want that."

"You're-wrong about thinking little of you," Potter said, and lowered his head without taking his eyes off Draco, as if he wanted to trap Draco's arm against his neck. "And because I think more of you than you evidently do of yourself, I know that an expert blowjob from _anyone _would be of use to you. It's not that you want me, it's just that you want someone's throat to shoot down."

Draco pressed back again, because evidently all Potter did with more breath was make mistakes with it. "You idiot," he hissed. "If I had so little regard for you, why would I stay with you?"

"Because of revenge," Potter said. "You haven't had revenge on Moonstone and Schroeder yet. And there's a difference between regarding me as a partner in this revenge scheme and regarding me as a-a _partner_."

"A lover," Draco corrected, and watched Potter turn so horribly red he would have feared a heart attack if he hadn't been able to feel the healthy way that heart pounded away against his hand. "Why do I have less trouble saying the word than you, Potter, the ultimate Gryffindor?"

"Because I'm no one's lover," Potter said harshly, and reached up to remove Draco's arm. "My first obligation right now is to Adam. Not to you."

"You say that," Draco said, moving to the side so that he could hold Potter even as he permitted the other man to throw off his arm, "but who brewed potions to rescue you? Who permitted you to escape trouble from constantly using Dark Arts, and made you think of other options? Who gave you the information and baited the traps you needed to catch Moonstone?"

Potter's nostrils flared for a moment, and he stood still with his body shuddering. Draco reached a hand down to stroke his chest. A rather well-defined body, of course the host of an annoying spirit, but worth investigating in many ways.

"Right, fine," Potter said. "An obligation to you. I have that. You want a blowjob? You can have that."

"I believe I've stated what I want," Draco murmured, and wondered if he should kiss Potter yet. No, perhaps he should wait until the man was less likely to bite.

"_Why_?" Potter flared back, all the bitter fire in his eyes and his thoughts, his hands clenching down at his sides. Draco reminded himself that Potter didn't need a wand to stun him, and checked his thoughts through the potion bond. They still chattered incoherently, but at least hadn't smoothed into that deadly silence Potter had used when he attacked Moonstone. "That's what makes no sense. Revenge I can understand. Payment too. But this isn't any kind of payment, and it doesn't make sense as revenge. If you'll tell me what you want, Malfoy, then I can settle the debt."

"The way you can with Adam?" Draco asked, immensely enjoying himself now as he watched the light in Potter's eyes turn even darker. "The way you can with your friends?"

Potter hissed at him. Draco listened, but didn't think he caught Parseltongue in the sound, much as he would have liked to.

"That's what I want," Draco said. "That's my price. To become important to you, in a way that you can't toss aside. You've taken time and attention from me, and money, if you count the time that I've spent keeping the shop closed. Safety, even, if Moonstone's friends should guess who kidnapped him. No mere price, no apology, satisfies me for that. But you will. The gift of someone who will pay attention to me, and focus on me as something more than a means to an end." He moved closer to Potter, feeling him harden. He could claim many things, but not that he wasn't attracted to Draco. "Surely that is what my services are worth?" he murmured, and eyed Potter's mouth.

* * *

Harry had no idea what Malfoy was hearing from the back of his mind right now, and, right now, he didn't much care. He could only stare at him with his heart and his lungs shuddering from the shock and try to gasp.

That was what Malfoy wanted. That was what Draco wanted, from the way his hand was braced against his chest. It was only part of what Harry thought they had come here to discuss, but it was more than he had expected to get.

And part of him...

Part of him didn't care if it made sense or not, if it was what he had expected or not. He wanted it too much. There was still a taste of Draco in his mouth, a longing to see Draco looking at him with something other than disdain or impatience, and this was the possible means to that end.

He leaned in and kissed Draco.

Draco jolted against him for a moment-Harry rather thought _he _had expected to be in control-and then his fingers sank deep and clawed into flesh and muscle. Harry kissed back in response, biting his lips and tasting Draco's tongue when he opened his mouth. He chuckled to feel Draco leap against him when he reached down to palm his erection. That was fun. And it was fun to feel Draco burning against him, striving, trying to hold him and pull him away from the door to feel his arse and be on top all at once. Harry aimed them in what he thought was the direction of the bed and pushed them away from the door.

It wasn't the direction of the bed, or at least not close enough to count. They crashed into the floor instead, making Harry's teeth jar in his head and feel like they were going to come out. They would have fallen with Draco beneath him, but Harry rolled instinctively and hunched with his head up to reduce the impact. Draco laughed breathlessly into his face, and then he writhed, his hands on either side of Harry's head, holding back his wrists. Harry coiled his legs under him to kick before he remembered where he was and who he was with, and restrained himself with a grind of his teeth and a clench of his jaw, half-tossing his head.

"This is what I want," Draco hissed into his face, and pressed down with the weight of his hips and body, arching where he didn't have the length, forcing Harry's tensed legs down and apart. Harry swallowed and complied, knowing he wanted to do this, but struggling against the instincts of his training. Draco made a soft, inquiring noise above him, but Harry didn't say anything in words, not thinking he needed the information to figure it out for himself.

In the end, Draco knelt between his spread legs and stared at him. One of his hands had come to rest on Harry's face; the other held down his left wrist. The hand on his face brushed back and forth as though Draco was feeling the shape of Harry's teeth through his lips. His brow had started to furrow.

_Oh, God, any minute he's going to say something about how he isn't sure. And I don't want to think about this. This is what I want._

Harry rolled his eyes and said in a ringing voice, not concerned about Kreacher coming in with the charms that Draco had put on the door, "What, deciding that you're not man enough to fuck me?"

Draco's face changed completely, though maybe more because of the thoughts that Harry could feel boiling in the back of his head than because of the words themselves, and he darted his head down and bit the base of Harry's throat where his shirt folded over. Harry tossed his head back and let his legs fall further open, and ground up against Draco, spilling out words that he couldn't remember much of afterwards, except for, "You'd _better _be man enough."

Draco reared back and pulled his hawthorn wand out. Harry felt the pulse of familiar magic right next to him before his clothes vanished, and then Draco tossed the wand onto the bedside table and said, "You know, we _do _have a perfectly good bed right next to us that we could be using."

"Oh, we could do that," Harry said, cursing the tremor in his voice as Draco reached back and fingered his balls and hole, while he tried to press his foot into Draco's arse and was stopped by the cloth that was still in the way, on _Draco_. "Or you could give me a pounding right here that's less likely to cost me a piece of furniture."

Draco laughed as if the novelty of someone saying things like that to him was as great as it was for Harry, and efficiently undid the buttons holding his trousers shut, pushing them down his hips. His pants followed, and Harry was pleased to see that his cock was more than perfectly good. Draco reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a small vial of what looked like a honey-colored potion. He raised his eyebrows at Harry.

Harry grinned at him, flying on impulse and desire. "Let's see what that does when we use it as lube."

Draco smiled at him in response, a smile that Harry thought he had seen echoes of in his face all along, and coated his own cock first, stroking himself luxuriously and groaning so loudly Harry said, "You would have been a good actor."

Draco simply snorted and then reached down and for his hole again. Harry let his legs sprawl and closed his eyes, the better to concentrate on the sensation. The finger hurt, and burned, and dug, and was good. He would have reached down and pushed Draco's whole hand into himself if he hadn't added a second finger at that moment. Harry groaned in turn and humped into the air, nearly sending Draco flying.

"Impatient, impatient," Draco said, and pushed in a third before Harry's body had got used to the second finger, which felt more than good.

"Yes," Harry said. "Eager for my first taste of it, which you should have figured out by now if you had a _working _brain. Shame it's just extra weight that you carry in your skull."

Draco's hand tried to stop, but Harry rolled his eyes and said, "Oh, that vaunted potions bond didn't tell you anything about how eager I was for it, then?" and drove himself down on Draco's hand. Draco flushed, and spread his fingers wide, and moved them up and down. Harry hissed.

"My cock's bigger than that," Draco said, his eyes always burning, never moving from Harry's face.

"Doesn't look it," Harry snapped, reaching down to spread himself open, because Draco had tugged his fingers out and was adding an extra helping of potion to himself. Harry wondered for a moment whether it could be absorbed through the skin, and what it did, and then flung the thought into the whirling abyss of emotion that threatened to consume him. He wondered when the impossible had happened and he had started to _trust _Draco Malfoy.

"But it'll _feel _like it," Draco said, and then he shoved in and Harry shoved back and a grunt of satisfaction shoved its way out of Draco's throat and a shout shoved its way out of Harry's.

It hurt, but Harry had fought pain when enemies tortured him and when Bellatrix killed Sirius and when he suffered with the dead. He could take this. He _wanted _to take this, and he was with someone who wouldn't give him more than he could bear, because what he wanted to bear was everything. He began to fuck himself, rocking up and down, gasping up at a motionless Draco who stared at him with parted lips, because he didn't seem to _get _it.

"Do I have to do everything by myself?" Harry demanded.

And then Draco _got _it, and threw his back into it. Harry closed his eyes and gloried.

* * *

Potter was warm. Draco clenched his hands down and felt skin slip and slide and mark beneath his nails. He felt tightness clench him. He heard breathless little grunts of pleasure and knew they were his own.

So long as Potter shared in them, that did not trouble him. And when he looked, Potter's head lay on the floor and he fucked himself as steadily on Draco as Draco fucked him. His eyes fluttered open briefly when Draco snapped his name, and the thoughts in the back of his head sighed and crooned and melted together. They had lost the words.

That was, perhaps, not as great a compliment to Draco's prowess as making them go silent altogether, but that did not matter. Draco had the rhythm now, and he was the one who would win and conquer Potter, show him that he could not go around being unaffected by Draco while Draco-

While Draco-

His own head tilted back. His body was there, his body was moving, but he had no control. Numbers sleeted through his head and shattered like words, like the voices of water and thought. His hips kept moving; his chest inhaled and exhaled, independently of him. It was there. He was doing it.

It was nothing like making a potion. His hips slammed deep, and then locked, and he had no choice about the orgasm spilling out of him, no way to control the length of the process or the way he came.

He had a choice about what he did afterwards, though, and with effort Draco kept himself from slumping down like a puppet without strings. He opened his eyes and stared into Harry's face. Harry stared back, his eyes half-open as if he had no strength open them further, his mouth curved in an expression that might have been like a smile if his lips were closer together.

And his body kept moving, jerking against Draco's, unsatisfied.

Ah, yes. He had control of _that_.

Draco reached out and let his hand hover above Harry's cock. Harry tilted his head to the side and squirmed out a wordless sound, and Draco looked at how red his chest was, how dark the hair that covered it, how pale the nails on the hands that were opening and closing. He had almost forgotten that Harry was naked and he was still mostly clothed, although he had done it to make a point, of course.

Right now, what he wanted was to make Harry come.

He folded back all his fingers except his second one, and let that stroke down the center of Harry's cock, less a touch than the shadow of a touch, the feeling of a touch, a brush, a caress through the air, on it. But Harry tilted his head back further, and the flush spread down so far that Draco really thought he might be in danger of a heart attack, and then Harry gave a pained bellow and _erupted._

A stupid word, but that was what Draco felt happened, when suddenly his hand was soaked and his shirt was soaked and so was Harry. Draco took his eyes away from it after a moment and watched the way the tremors ran through Harry, subsiding only when the last of the pleasure left him. At least, Harry twisted his head to the side and started breathing normally.

Draco leaned near to him, mouth at Harry's ear like a lover's, like the price he had demanded, and breathed, "There. Ignore me now. Ignore _that_."

* * *

Harry spent a moment catching his breath before he could respond. He'd had as powerful orgasms, of course. It was just impossible to have one that was less strong than others, he had decided a long time ago.

But...

But he didn't often have ones like these, that made him feel clear-headed and gentle as well as drained and empty. He didn't like the feeling that echoed and ached in his muscles after he came, really, the way he felt like lying down and doing nothing. He wanted to be up and doing something again as soon as possible. He wanted the air to stay in his lungs where it belonged and stop escaping his mouth as if desperate to rejoin the rest of the air in the room.

But as it was, this was the best he had ever felt after one, and he was _sure _that had something to do with the man who had given it to him.

"I'm not going to try to ignore you," he said, when he'd spent some time gasping and decided that he probably looked like a stranded fish. His voice didn't shake much, either. Harry was proud of that. "But-you ought to know-that you might not get everything you want me from me. I just don't have it to give."

Draco huffed a laugh at him. "And you are still determined to disappoint and argue with me, aren't you?"

"Always." Harry stretched his arms above his head, and then stretched further until he felt his fingers brush one of the bed-legs and heard his palms crack. Then he shoved at Draco to get him off him. Draco only rolled a little to the side, in a way that made him heavier than ever, and skimmed a hand down Harry's flank, over the ribs.

"I could get used to this," he said to no one in particular. "I could get used to being on you, with you-" He shifted his hips and Harry winced. "_In _you," Draco said, and his eyes had the sharpness of arrows newly-shot.

Harry studied him. Draco studied him back, and Harry had the sensation that they were both, at the moment, equally well-known to the other.

_I'm not getting rid of him._

Harry frowned. He didn't know if Draco would want to take care of Adam, or be with Harry once he realized what it would probably mean to walk away from the British wizarding world. But if Draco wanted to come with him for part of the journey, then Harry was, frankly, too glad of his company to turn him away.

"All right," he said, and kissed Draco with a sudden lunge up from the floor that nearly slammed their heads together. Draco gasped, and then gave in to the kiss with a curl and flex of his fingers that settled them on Harry's shoulder. When he pulled out of Harry, it made them both groan.

"I need to tell you what I learned from Moonstone about the location of the places they're keeping the children, and how many they have," Harry began.

"Later," Draco said, and ran a foot down Harry's side, watching the spill of liquid down his skin. "I think we should both shower, and then your ward will probably be awake, and should be attended to. And then, when both of us have been reminded about both sides of this, then we will talk again."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "If you're sure," he said.

Draco rolled his eyes and hauled him to his feet. "I'm not sure about everything and anything all the time, the way you seem to be," he muttered into Harry's ear, his voice husky. "That's not the same as knowing _nothing_, you know." His hand on Harry's arm squeezed down firmly.

After a moment, Harry decided to squeeze back.


	27. In Conversation

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twenty-Seven-In Conversation_

"Harry? Thank _fuck _you're there."

Harry blinked at the Floo, where Ron's face hovered. It was sheer coincidence that he had woken up early because Adam had a nightmare and spent some time comforting him before he came down to the drawing room in Grimmauld Place. Of course, if Ron had tried to Floo him last night, then he wouldn't have been there because he was...busy with Draco.

Harry cleared his throat, his face flushing, and made himself stop caring about the fact that Ron might be able to see his embarrassment. So what if he could? Harry doubted he would point it out. "Yeah, Ron. What is it? Do Schroeder and Moonstone know I've escaped, or that the person in the cells isn't me?"

"Nothing like that," Ron said, and grimaced. "But Moonstone has vanished, and Schroeder has started a public hunt with the Aurors. We're supposed to curse first when we see someone who might have a clue to Moonstone's whereabouts, and ask questions later."

Harry barely refrained from slapping a hand over his eyes and groaning aloud. "I...see," he said, because he did but wished he had talked to Ron last night. "Well, if you're worried about having to search in earnest, don't be. Draco and I captured Moonstone and brought him here yesterday."

Ron paused, his eyes bright for a moment. Then he shook his head. "And you never thought to tell me that?" he asked quietly.

"I tried to leave a message for you," Harry said. "At least, I think I did." He couldn't remember that much about his frantic preparations for controlling Moonstone and comforting Adam and settling Draco, and suspected that his brain had been going so fast that he was lucky to get out of it possessing any coherent thoughts at all. "Sorry. Fuck. I don't think I did."

Ron nodded, but there was no expression on his face at all. "And you wouldn't happen to know why Malfoy's shop is shut down and there's a notice on his front door saying that he won't be there for the foreseeable future?"

"Because he's with me," Harry said, grateful that he could give an answer to a question that didn't make him want to look away from Ron. "He decided that, since Moonstone and Schroeder know his name, there was no reason for him to stay behind in safety. It wouldn't be _real _safety. And he was the one Moonstone threatened, because he sensed my magical signature while I was in the room trying to read his."

Ron's jaw clenched. "In other words, the same way he found you out last time," he snapped. "You haven't come up with a way _yet _to guard against his ability to do that?"

"Draco says there's no way to disguise someone's magical signature, and Moonstone is really, really sensitive to them." Harry sat down in one of the chairs before the hearth and swung his legs idly, having to hide a smile when one of them cramped. He and Draco had used the floor yesterday, sure, but also the bed, and the wall at one point when the shower had grown more interesting than either of them had imagined it could. "We mostly hoped to give him something else to focus on that wouldn't alert him to what I was doing. We didn't completely succeed. But I do have a list of names and places where he's holding the children."

Ron seemed to catch his breath and hold it for a long minute. "And you'll give me this information?" he asked when he breathed out.

"Of course," Harry said. "It-may be up to you to do what you can for them, because I've captured Moonstone, and interrogated him, and I have traps around him that will kill him if he breaks out. I think I've done it, Ron. Finally done something that means I can't be an Auror anymore."

Ron's eyes widened, and for a moment, there was complete silence between them except for the crackling of the flames. Then he shook his head. "Mate," he whispered.

"I really do think so, Ron," Harry had to repeat stubbornly when he saw the way his friend looked at him. "What can we do with Moonstone? We probably have most of the information we need from him. Kill him, and the news will come out eventually, and Schroeder will turn the world upside-down trying to find his murderer. Release him with a Memory Charm, and someone will dig beneath it and discover me and Draco-and Adam, too. I couldn't stand that. We can't threaten him or bargain with him. What he wants is increased magical power, and we can't offer him that."

Ron closed his eyes, then opened them. "Hermione will come up with something," he said, like a prayer. "Hermione will know what to do."

"I don't know," Harry said quietly. "I hope she does. But I know that I might need to disappear, and I know that you probably don't want to."

"How can you think that we wouldn't do _anything _for you?" Ron thrust his head forwards so far that Harry was afraid for a second he would hit his chin on the hearth. "After all you've done for us? Because we're friends? Honestly, Harry, do you think before you open your mouth at all sometimes?"

Harry smiled in spite of himself. "Do you realize how much you sound like Hermione?"

Ron scowled at him, but said nothing, waiting for Harry to answer his larger point. Harry sighed and flexed his fingers, which hurt with how hard he'd been gripping the chair. He had to phrase this exactly right, or it would sound like he was rejecting his friends where he was happy to have Draco come with him. And that wasn't the way he wanted it to sound, not at all.

"You want to give up your jobs, your lives, your other friends, because I was stupid enough to assault Moonstone and now I might have to kill him?" he asked. "You want to give up your hopes of having children and letting them see their grandparents to take care of Adam?"

"We could still have children if we went with you," Ron said, but he was blinking and uncertain.

Harry nodded. "Of course you could. But they would be in danger in a way that Adam can't be, because he's already been hurt and he's already being hunted. Someone might find you, and-Ron, I'm sorry, but that red hair is pretty distinctive. And you can't hide everything you are under a glamour forever. Especially if we let Moonstone live. He can recognize magical signatures, and there might be other people with that talent."

Ron shook his head. "Then what's the alternative, Harry? Let you go into exile with only _Malfoy _for company?"

"He's Draco now," Harry corrected. "And he seems to want to come. For him, I think it matters that he's not married and the Potions masters still won't give him proper apprentices. And he can probably set up his brewing elsewhere more easily than you could be an Auror elsewhere, or Hermione can fight for the political causes she loves in a different country."

Of all the things he'd just said, Ron picked the most unexpected one to argue with. His nose wrinkled, and he looked on the verge of being either stunned or appalled. "_Harry_," he breathed. "You-really? With _Draco Malfoy?_"

"What?" Harry asked, spreading his hands, but he knew better than to think that innocent act would fool Ron forever.

Or at all, as it turned out. Ron pointed one trembling hand at him, as if his finger would lunge out of the fire and pin Harry to his chair. "You _fucked _him!"

Harry blinked. Ron had caught on faster than he had thought he would have, but at least Harry could keep the ball spinning and defuse some of the tension by going further than Ron might have liked. "Other way around, actually. But yeah."

Ron made a noise like a cat choking to death on a hairball, and banged his head against the hearth on his side. "Oh, God," he moaned. "I'm going to have that image in my head _forever_, and you just _had _to go and make it worse, didn't you-"

"Yeah," Harry said, and gave Ron a faint smile. "Well, if you didn't know that, you'd think it was really strange that he wanted to come into exile with me, wouldn't you? So you would have figured it out eventually. At least it's now, so you're not firecalling me in the middle of the night and moaning into my ear."

Ron didn't seem to take that as consolation. He clenched his hands into his hair and barked, "Have you gone _completely _mad? Adopting a kid, capturing Moonstone, sleeping with someone who doesn't care about you, who can't-the only reason he joined us was for revenge, for Merlin's sake!"

"That _was _the only reason. Not anymore."

Harry blinked and glanced over his shoulder. He had had the thought, but he was sure that he couldn't have said those words with such calm confidence in his voice. And Draco stood behind him, one eyebrow raised, his attention on Ron to all appearances but his arms winding securely around Harry's waist. Harry sagged back against him and closed his eyes.

"So you're here," Ron said, eyeing Draco as if he still thought it was a surprise to find him with Harry, despite everything. "Fine. Then maybe _you _can tell me what the fuck you're thinking, and why you think running away with Harry would solve everything?"

Draco gave an unpleasant smile and rested his chin on Harry's shoulder. It dug in, and aggravated a bite he'd given Harry last night, but Harry couldn't find it in himself to complain. "I chose to come because of what Harry owes me, and what I wanted from him," he said. "That should be reason enough for you, unless you interrogate every lover Harry takes like this." He cocked his head then, and his eyes cut sideways. "Does he?"

"He hasn't made this bad a choice in a _long _time, that's why I haven't done this before!" Ron yelled, waving his hands. "Harry, really, I want to know. In what _universe _did this seem like a good idea? You have so much happening already, and-"

"Harry?"

Harry knew he was the only one in the room to whom that sounded like a word and not a meaningless hiss, but that made it all the more important for him to respond to it. He turned around and knelt down, holding out his arms to Adam. Adam trotted into them, giving both Ron and Draco suspicious glances, as though he assumed they would change into the wizards who had abused him at any moment.

"I woke up, and you weren't there," Adam said, his fingers curling deep, into places Draco's fingers had rested only a few moments before. "You said you would be there."

"Sorry, I did say that," Harry murmured into his hair, and ruffled it. He could feel Draco and Ron staring at his back, and flushed. Neither of them had children, either, but at least Ron planned to, and maybe Draco did, if he was going to have someone to inherit the Malfoy estates, and Harry was probably doing everything wrong. But he had promised to keep Adam safe until they cured the Parseltongue affliction he had, at least, and he was going to. "Come on, do you want something to eat?" He stood up with his hand extended to Adam and met the eyes of his friend and his lover defiantly.

After a moment, Draco gave him the smallest smile and rested a hand on Harry's arm. "Can you tell him that I'm someone else who might want to help him?" he murmured to Harry.

"I want cereal," Adam said at the same time.

Harry spent a moment making sure he was giving the right response in the right language to the right person, and made Draco's comment a little more enthusiastic when he translated it for Adam. Adam gave Draco a skeptical look anyway, and then looked at Harry and said, "I don't know. What happens if he wants to take you away? What happens if he goes into the fire?" He glanced at Ron in turn. Harry couldn't blame him for the hasty way he turned away, though. He wouldn't be that comfortable with magic, right now.

_And might not ever be. _What the fuck was Harry going to do, if he did raise him? He could leave the wizarding world, but he couldn't give up his own magic, he thought, not even for the sake of making Adam more comfortable.

_You adapt. You teach him that not all wizards are arseholes, and you show him that you can help him. You teach him to revel in the magic he has._

Harry relaxed at the thought. That was a lot of work, but it sounded more doable when he remembered that he had _time _to do it, all the time that Adam might be with him, instead of right away. So he wasn't a good parent immediately. He doubted anyone except the occasional miraculous person like Mrs. Weasley was.

"He's not going to take me away," he told Adam, and nodded at the grip Draco had on his arm. "See? He wants to hold onto me, but he's not pulling me away from you, and he could. He's staying right here, with us."

Adam considered that for a minute, and then said, "Sometimes they can pull you away like that. Sometimes they can pull you _apart _like that." His face went grey, and for a second he squirmed as if he would dart away from Harry and into another room. Then he ended up clinging tighter, and looked as if he didn't know whether to be unhappy about that or not.

Harry took a deep breath and reminded himself that at least the Healers who had tormented the boy were dead, and Moonstone's and Schroeder's turns were coming. "Sorry," he whispered to Adam, caressing his hair. "I promise, no one is going to take me away, because I won't _let _myself be taken away."

"I thought that," Adam said, and his fingers dug in until Harry could feel skin flaking away under the boy's nails. "I told myself I was brave and strong and I was going to fight them when they took me. It didn't work." His nails dipped down, and down, and Harry heard Draco mutter an oath. From the corner of his eye, he saw one pale hand reach out, probably to separate him and Adam.

"_No_," he said sharply, and stooped down so that he was in front of Adam. Draco stopped moving. Whether or not Harry had said the word in English, he obviously understood the tone. Harry was glad of that. He took Adam's hands in his and massaged them a little until Adam let go of the death-grip he had and looked at Harry, blinking.

"No one is ever going to take me away from you, because I won't let it happen," Harry said, and made it as solemn as an oath. "You can trust me or not, but I'm going to keep the promise."

Adam paused. Then he said, "What if you fight _them_, and you don't come back?"

"Then there's someone else who will take care of you," Harry said, privately vowing to make sure of that before he went anywhere on a dangerous mission. And they had the information from Moonstone now that he didn't know they had. They could make an informed decision. They could set the traps. At least, if they acted quickly. If Harry thought there was a chance that he would die and get separated from Adam, then he wouldn't go. "I promise."

Adam watched his face, and his eyes, looking at invisible signals that Harry didn't understand. He wondered if he would have understood better when he was a child himself, and at the Dursleys', but he didn't think so, not really. Adam had suffered a lot, and all at once. Harry had suffered a bit day by day.

"All right," Adam said. "Then I want cereal."

Harry smiled in spite of himself, and rose to his feet, glancing at Ron and Draco. "If you want to plan something, then I don't mind," he said. He had ended up putting his memories of the information he'd drawn from Moonstone in Draco's Pensieve last night, so Draco could examine them at his leisure, during one of the times they'd actually managed to be productive. Well, productive of something other than pleasure, anyway. "I'm going to be in the kitchen with Adam."

Adam led the way. Draco watched Harry go with a complex expression, and Ron with a baffled one. Harry knew he would have to talk to both of them later, to explain, to order his impressions and the confusing things he'd probably done.

But, for the first time in a long time, he felt at peace anyway. He was going to be with Draco until the point Draco lost patience with him, which Ron couldn't change. He was going to be Adam's caretaker, because he had promised, which Draco couldn't change. Both of them would accept that or argue in a way that would lead Harry to think about it. That was all that was going to happen in the distant future, at least on those two topics.

For the near future, there was cereal.

* * *

Draco turned back towards Weasley, and decided he could be the mature one. It would gain him an advantage with Harry. Besides, he had worked with Weasley in the recent past and knew him to be competent and admirable at what he did when not in the middle of a raging temper tantrum.

"What I want is Harry's complete attention," he said. "This is the way to get it."

"To fuck him?" Weasley stared at him as if trying to see the attraction. Draco sneered back. He would try to get along with Weasley, but he had no interest in showing him half the things about himself that Harry got to see.

"Yes," Draco said. "It wasn't a solution I had considered at first, but it's the one I want now."

Weasley shook his head like a dog shaking off water, and pursed his lips as though he was fighting his way through a fog. The first gesture might not be usual for him, but Draco thought the second was. "Fine," he said at last, words clipped. "And when you scar Harry, then I'll make it my business to hunt you down and destroy you. Fair enough warning?"

Draco smiled with all his teeth. "I'm sure Harry is capable of doing that for himself, if he really wants to. He seems to make a habit of it with the criminals he chases as an Auror."

Weasley surveyed him one more time, than grunted and reached backwards for something. When he turned around again, he was holding parchment and ink. "Are you going to give me the information that Harry said you had, or continue to tease me?" he asked.

Draco could have pounced on the "teasing" line with both feet, but he was content to consider it a gift from the gods for the moment and do something else instead. "I'll need to enter the Pensieve for that," he said, and Summoned it to him with a nonverbal _Accio_. Weasley narrowed his eyes as the Pensieve swooped into the room, but didn't say anything about the precious liquid of Harry's memories spilling, the way that Draco was sure he might have.

Draco plunged his head beneath the surface, and listened to the cold voice whispering to Harry, and the golden words unscrolling. He sighed when he realized they came too fast for him to remember easily, and that he would have to pull his head out and cast a Copying Spell on some parchment first.

He raised his head out of the memory, and found Weasley staring at him. Of course, he tried to conceal it when Draco caught him, but he wasn't good enough to do that. Draco cocked his head and gave him a whimsical smile. "What?"

"You-" Weasley cleared his throat. "You may think that you're good enough to fool Harry, but you can't fool me."

Draco opened his mouth to retort, and then shook his head. Why should he? They were here to gain information and then to stop the way that Moonstone and Schroeder were misusing Galen's notes, and if they were doing it for utterly different motives and reasons, well, it wasn't as though Draco hadn't known that already.

"The information came too fast for me to remember it all," he said calmly. "What I'm going to do is cast a Copying Spell on the parchment-" he Summoned it with a wave of his wand that made Weasley start in a satisfactory manner "-so that I can simply look at it when I'm done with the memory and it will appear. You might as well put away the parchment that you were going to write on. It won't be needed."

Weasley turned red and opened his mouth, but the parchment had come, and so had the ink that Draco would like to have on hand to touch up the sometimes badly-written words of the Copying Spell. Draco turned and put his head back into the memory.

While of course he listened to the words recited in the cold voice like the Dark Lord's and watched the spiraling golden letters, most of his attention remained on the way Harry acted. Harry moved-one could see the shimmer of the Cloak if one was looking for it-when Moonstone put his wand to Draco's throat, but didn't immediately attack. And the movement seemed towards the door of the room where he had put the child.

And then, in the memory in the room upstairs, Harry held himself more in check than Draco had believed. Seen from the front, even more quivers and tremors raced through his muscles and over his face.

Perhaps Draco need not always act as a chain on Harry. Perhaps he could sometimes be the partner he had claimed to be last night in truth.

He leaned back when he was done and cast the spell, staring at the parchment with unblinking eyes. Whatever he looked at would become branded with the memory of the words, and the only other target in the room he would have enjoyed covering was Weasley's face. Alas, the spell might not work through a Floo connection.

The words appeared, and Draco continued to stare until his eyes watered fiercely and he was sure the list had completed itself. Then he spent a few moments correcting some words, mostly names, that might be illegible. Finally, he turned and gravely proffered the document to Weasley.

Weasley stared at him, and gnashed his teeth together. Then he took it and said curtly, "I'll contact you when I've studied this and come up with a plan."

"Be careful what other Aurors you pull in on this," Draco said, both because Weasley needed the caution and because it would allow him to have the last word. "Two worked with Moonstone and Schroeder at the last site, or at least two people who had Auror training. There's no telling who might have been compromised."

"I haven't," Weasley said sharply. "Harry hasn't."

Draco smiled.

Weasley vanished from the fire in a burst of green, and Draco stood up and stretched in a leisurely fashion before he proceeded into the kitchen to join Harry and Adam.

It did occur to him, as he went, that they might be coming close to the original vision Harry had come to warn him about, the one where he and Harry seemed comfortable in each other's company and appeared to have several adopted children.

Draco gave a loose, rippling shrug and moved forwards to meet, if necessary, his destiny.


	28. In the Midst

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twenty-Eight-In the Midst_

"This is what I think we should do."

Harry nodded in response to Ron's words, but he was thinking of Adam. Adam had eaten breakfast, put up with a few spells Harry had cast him in an attempt to find out whether the Parseltongue was a curse wound around him or simply an unnatural ability, and then insisted on going exploring. Harry had accompanied him through two floors before either Adam's nightmares or the general gloominess of the place had overcome him. He'd wanted to go back to his room, and Harry had left him half-asleep on his bed, curled up as though he could keep someone from snatching him that way.

Harry had surrounded the bed with wards that would prevent anyone but him or Kreacher from coming near. He'd thought of telling Adam about them, because they might make him feel safer, but in the end, Adam's skittishness about magic had kept him silent.

At least they were there. At least Harry knew Ron would take over for him and do the best he could to save Adam if Harry died.

"_Harry_."

That was the way Ron sounded when Harry had done something especially exasperating. Harry came back to himself with a rough shake of his head and gave his friend an embarrassed smile. "Did Hermione help you with the plan?" he asked.

Draco shifted in the chair next to him. Ron, on a chair that he'd conjured himself, gave the paper he held a haughty rattle. "You think that I couldn't come up with something by myself, despite the _acknowledged _genius for strategy I have?" he asked, with a sniff.

"Of course you could," Harry said, and grinned at him. "But we would both feel better if Hermione also had a look at that plan, and I think you know it."

"Yeah, and she did," Ron said, and held out the parchment. Harry cocked his head to the side so he could study it, since the parchment was more the size of a map than the size of a piece of paper someone might take notes on. He felt Draco get up and come to stand looking over his shoulder, which was fine, although Ron started and gave Draco a narrow look.

The piece of parchment _was _a map, the locations that Moonstone's magical signature had revealed laid out with only rough notations of really important wizarding landmarks between them. Harry hissed and stabbed a finger down at two of the locations in London. "The bastard," he whispered. "Two of these are _less _than a mile from the Ministry!"

"Probably an assurance of safety for him rather than otherwise," Draco said, his voice colorless. "He knows how many allies he can count on in the Ministry."

Ron nodded, mostly a flash of blurry red in the corner of Harry's eye, since he couldn't bring himself to look away from the map. "Hermione's there as our wizard on the inside right now, checking to see how alarmed Schroeder is that he couldn't locate Moonstone right away."

"We have to move," Harry said, his eyes lingering on those locations where, for all he knew, they were torturing children right now. The thought made his skin itch and feel too small for his hands. He slapped the map into Draco's hands and rose to pace. "If there's any chance that they're going ahead with their 'work' even though Moonstone has vanished, and they probably _will_, the bastards, because they'll think that they need more powerful magic than ever to face the enemies who took him-"

"Harry."

Draco's voice had the same lack of color as before, the same heat. Harry whirled around. "You don't care, do you?" he demanded. "I heard what you said the other day. How they were misusing Galen's _notes_. You don't care about the children in the same way."

"Not in the same way, no," Draco said, watching him with eyes that shone like a mirror. "I don't approve of sacrificing a method that would need to be studied carefully before it was used, if at all, to the haste and greed of a few. I don't approve of the way they snatch Muggle children, because in the end it might increase Muggle attention to us. I don't approve of the way that they tried to threaten and bully me instead of seducing me to their side. And I don't approve of the way that it affects you."

Harry ground his teeth, and watched Ron start to his feet. He knew what Ron was going to say in the next moment. How could Harry stand to be with someone who was so _cold_? Someone who didn't care at all about the child Harry had chosen to take care of, someone who would probably only stay until it wasn't too inconvenient or until he'd fucked Harry as many times as he'd wanted...

Then Harry made himself _think_, rein in the stamping, snorting emotions in his head that wanted to take off like wild horses and go through his objections one by one. Draco only waited, his legs slung across each other. Some of his attention had shifted to Ron when Ron stood, but other than that, he didn't look like a man who thought he would need to defend himself.

Draco wasn't in this for the same reasons they were. Harry had always known that. And yet, Draco had made no objection to Adam and had even held him a few times while Harry arranged his room or breakfast or clothes, when he should have refused to come anywhere near him if he really thought Adam was a filthy Muggle.

"It makes a difference to you when they become wizards, doesn't it?" Harry said aloud. "If they survive the magic being poured from someone magical into them, then they're as much wizards to you as if they were born that way."

"Yes, of course," Draco said, raising his eyebrows as if he'd never thought he would have to explain that. "And everything else I said is true. It _could _draw attention to us. I object to the way they tried to use me, and you." He paused, then added, with the sound of pulling teeth, "I am not someone who cares about people I've never met, you must know that. I am someone who-cares about people closer to hand. There is no reason for my concern and my strength to go elsewhere, not when it means that I will probably only be wasting it on someone who will not care for me in return."

"Well, _yeah_, if your family had been more caring in the past, then you might not have so many enemies," Ron snapped.

Draco ignored him, and held Harry's eyes. Harry grimaced a little. He had seen for himself that Draco had strong emotions; he just held them in check better than Harry ever could.

But that led to a natural conclusion that, if Draco didn't care about people except those close at hand or those who had done something for him, then all those strong feelings were saved up and poured over the heads of those few. He had given Harry advice, he had wanted his attention, he had been far more irritated by the fact that Campion was a criminal than he would have been if Harry had arrested a random Potions assistant who wasn't his.

_Belong to him, and you're valued. Don't belong to him, and you're not interesting. And even then, there's gradations. Pure-bloods are more interesting than half-bloods, and wizards are more interesting than Muggles._

Draco smiled, and Harry reminded himself that Draco could hear part of his thoughts. "Forgive my bluntness," Draco added, smoothly enough that it was easier to forget his earlier remarks if Harry really tried. "But I don't like seeing you as upset as you were, and it does seem likely to damage our plans as well as your own. There's no point in tearing off without a plan, which I think Weasley said he had." He turned to Ron and nodded to him. "What is it?"

Ron stared at him for a moment, then snorted and said, "You're not so bad, Malfoy, when you don't want to be." He sat down and pulled another sheaf of parchment from a robe pocket that was bulging out as if it were going to tear free. "This is the plan Hermione came up with. What do you think?"

Draco reached out to take the first sheet and turn it over, and left Harry staring at him, tasting his heartbeat.

He hadn't, really, thought Draco was different. This was the just the first time he'd heard him put his opinions in those particular words-and thought beyond the terms of an alliance that they'd established when they hadn't been sleeping together.

But for Draco, this wasn't a contradiction, that he could want to sleep with Harry and still not care about what Harry wanted to do in the same way. If he could put up with it, and Harry _wanted _to put up with it, then they might as well both go on with things. Harry had reminded himself just the other day that they probably wouldn't last forever, anyway.

He sighed and sat down in the chair he'd had before. Draco nodded to him and handed him the first sheet of the plan, beginning to speak in calm, cool words of what they would need to make it happen. Harry leaned back in his chair and resigned himself to listening.

* * *

As far as Draco could see, Weasley and Granger had been thorough, trying to design plans for a series of locations that they didn't know the exact layout of and which might have protections that Moonstone hadn't revealed to Harry. They proposed that a small band, consisting of them, Draco, and as many allies as they could muster, would hit each location hard in a series of running raids, cutting off their communication with the other hiding spots of Moonstone and Schroeder's merry allies, rescuing the children they could, and taking captive who they could. The main project of importance was keeping those raided from getting off warnings to anyone else.

It was exactly the sort of hit-and-run tactics, backed with powerful magic, at which Harry would excel.

And exactly the sort of thing that Draco didn't know if they should permit him to try, not when he had Adam in tow.

"What are we going to do about Adam?" Weasley asked, and tackled the problem with more openness than Draco would have wanted to try. As he could have told Weasley would happen, the words bit Harry as delicate hints would not have. He sat back in his chair and crossed his hands over his stomach. His thoughts said, _Should have known _and _Adam is important._

"What do you mean?" Harry asked, with a smooth face that Draco thought would have done credit to some of his assistants when they were trying to lie about why they'd got a potion wrong.

"Come off it, Harry," Weasley said, and once again showed Draco that his relationship with Harry was a very different one from Draco's. That was good. Draco need not fear the competition. "You know that you want to keep him with you. Fine, that's an admirable goal. But what are you going to do with him if you want to go along to these battles? You can't keep him with you, and you can't stay behind. Or, at least," and Weasley's voice faltered, "I reckon you could, but we'd do best if we had you with us."

Harry nodded with no expression on his face. His thoughts had calmed down into splintering, scintillating reflections of emotions, moving so fast that Draco did not know what he would say before he said it. "I know. And I've been thinking about that. Adam still has nightmares and fears about magic. I want to go slowly, to let him heal, but I also want him to see that the people who hurt him are being punished."

"You _can't _bring him along," Draco said, and this time chose the course of Weasley's openness, because this was something that must not be danced about. "It would be more than mad."

"I can ask him if he wants to go," Harry said. "If he would rather be separated from me, or if he would rather stay here with me. But there's a protection I can offer him that would keep him safe no matter what happened. A Blood Bubble."

Draco stared. "I do not know that spell," he said, and Harry gave him a half-smile, as if he understood the reason for the anger behind his voice.

"No one is saying you should," he replied. "But-"

"You _can't _use it," Weasley said, and his voice had a calm covering that kept shifting, rather like hardened lava on top of molten. "If you did, mate, then you would be useless during the battles. Using it would destroy the whole purpose for you coming along. You should wait here. Stay with Adam. At least he knows that you'll always protect him and you'll be ready to flee if something goes wrong."

"And leave you and Hermione and Draco and whoever else decides to come with us to go into battle without knowing the outcome?" Harry shook his head. "That's another argument against staying here. If something goes wrong and you're all captured or killed, I wouldn't have any way of knowing. And if someone uses the same spell I did, or torture, to get the information about Grimmauld Place from you, then it might be too late for Adam and me to flee. No, I think I have to go."

"What is the Blood Bubble?" Draco asked. He thought he had been patient to wait that long. Then again, he had expected an explanation. Both Weasley and Harry seemed too involved in their own row to give him one.

"A spell I invented," Harry said. "Not Dark, but based on a few other Dark ones, distilling some of the theory so that it comes out right-"

"A _mad _spell," Weasley said flatly. "It drains more strength from him than anything else I've ever seen him do. And it _shouldn't _work. I know it does, mate," he added, as Harry opened his mouth. "And frankly, it's too creepy to use all the time. You-you don't understand all the theory. It shouldn't work the way it does."

"Perhaps you would do me the goodness of explaining it to me, so that I can judge for myself," Draco remarked to the ceiling.

Harry started and turned to him. "I think it'll work in this case," he said. "And you can probably give me potions that will strengthen me after I use it." He coughed when Draco stared at him again, and perhaps remembered that no Potions master could brew draughts unless he knew exactly what target he should be aiming for. "Anyway.

"The Blood Bubble is a protective shelter that I make out of my own blood. It forms this clear red bubble; you can see out of it, and hear the sounds, muffled, but no one can touch you through it, and smells and tastes can't get in. It floats behind me, and it's indestructible. I've tested it with every spell I can think of, including the Cruciatus Curse, and _nothing happens._" He flicked a glance at Weasley, and thus missed Draco's reaction. "If I die, then the bubble will immediately float away to the safest place for the person inside it. It doesn't matter if I don't know that safest place personally or not. It'll go there. I think that's the part Ron finds creepy."

"It's impossible," Weasley hissed. "Okay, fine, it might go the Burrow if I was in it, right? Because you know the Burrow, and it's my family's house. But you told me it would go back to someone's family that you don't know, or it would go someplace that they'd never been before and where no one knew them but which would still have people that would protect them. How can it _know_ that, Harry? I've had enough of trusting things that think where you can't see their brains."

Draco raised his eyebrows, and wondered who had originally told Weasley that. It sounded like something too wise for him to have come up with on his own. Weasley had strengths, as Draco had reason to know from the last few days, but they did not include wisdom.

"It's not a matter of _knowing_," Harry said calmly. "It has to do with the prophecy I was under and the curse scar," he added, turning towards Draco. "I'm not still subject to a prophecy now, of course-at least, not one I know about-but it leaves a sort of lingering mark on you if you have been. Kind of like a taint. People who are Seers are more likely to get clear visions of you-"

Draco tilted his head down, and Harry raised his eyebrows and flashed him a smile without stopping his words.

"And people who cast spells that are supposed to enhance their senses when they're around you might see a few seconds into the future." He glanced at Weasley. "I know that's happened to you, too, Ron, so you don't need to object."

"That doesn't mean anything," Weasley said, and folded his arms. "It happened, what, once? What you're talking about is some kind of magical disturbance on a fundamental level. I don't think it can _possibly_ be as important and far-reaching as you're talking about. It _can't _be, or we would have heard of it before now."

Harry snorted. "I'm working on piecemeal and guesswork, patching these together, I told you. And I did find that the same thing was true about people who were subject to other prophecies. There just hasn't been one as publicly known as the one I was under for a long time. People tended to keep it secret. But anyway, this is a combination of magical theories, not a single one by itself. And it oughtn't to work even then, but it does. That's all it is."

"So," Draco said, whose mind had raced through the meager knowledge he had of prophecies and Seers himself, "this bubble is-strung along threads of future possibility around you? If you died, itself a future event, then the bubble would ride the expanding waves of possibility to a place where its occupant could be safe. Not something it knows, or something _you _know, any more than a Seer knows how the future she Sees will come to pass. Something that could be glimpsed, one of a myriad number of possibilities."

Harry grinned and leaned forwards to clasp one of Draco's hands. "Excellent! Better explained than I managed when I tried to tell Ron. But yes. The only thing you're missing is that, when I die, that restricts the possibilities a bit, and kind of-releases the future magic, the attraction to prophecy, that hangs around me." He gestured in the air. "As far as I can figure out, that's the influence of the curse scar, changing my magic to be a bit unlike other people's. So the bubble _can _go someplace that can't be predicted unless you know more about the person inside it, but it won't be as many places as it could be when I was still alive. And it'll use the released magic that was embedded in my body while I lived to do so."

"I still don't the fuck understand that," Weasley said, apparently to the ceiling. "I don't care how many times you explain it. And really, it's bad enough living with _one _bloody magical theorist, I have to live with two?"

Harry laughed and reached out to punch Weasley in the shoulder without letting go of Draco's hand. "I'm only one when I have to be, you know that. I think _Draco's _of the opinion that I don't think enough, and rush in enough to be a stupid Gryffindor far too often as it is." He grinned at Draco, half-ducking his head.

Draco nodded, and kept the words he wanted to speak carefully unspoken. Harry was brilliant when he wanted to be, able to put together diverse concepts that drew upon his own strengths and weaknesses. Why did he not apply that brilliance to things he wanted to accomplish such as rescuing these children? Draco did not know.

"Anyway," Harry went on, shaking his head, "the Blood Bubble could keep Adam safe, and take him to someone who wants to protect him when I die. But I don't know if he would want to come at all.'

"If he doesn't?" Weasley asked, moments before Draco would have asked the same question. They caught each other's eye, and Weasley gave him a sympathetic grin that Draco did not think he deserved but decided, on careful analysis, that he did not intend to reject.

"Then," Harry said, with a sigh that practically kicked him back in the chair so he could stare up at the ceiling, "I'm going to have a hard decision to make."

* * *

Adam was so quiet when Harry told him what was happening that it outweighed the silence of Draco, who leaned against the doorway behind Harry and stared at his back.

"I don't _know_," Adam finally whispered. "How can I-you want me to come with you? Back to that place?"

"Not the same place," Harry said, starting to feel like he hadn't explained this well enough. Then again, he had had to leave out the magical theory and just explain to Adam that they were going to rescue other children like him, and punish the people who had hurt him, and Adam could come if he wanted and still be safe. "But other places like it. People who are like you."

"They can't speak human, either?" Adam cocked his head to the side and frowned.

"You _are _human," Harry said thickly, and felt Draco shift behind him, probably because he had heard the changed tone of Harry's Parseltongue words but didn't know what they meant. "Never think you aren't. You're human. You're real. You matter. Never think you don't."

Adam shut his eyes for a minute and tugged hard at his chin, a habit that Harry thought he did for comfort. He wondered who had taught it to Adam, his mother or his father or someone else, and swallowed. He didn't know if he would ever know.

Then he said, "They're hurting other people like me? They're hurting other kids?"

Harry nodded. "They are. And killing some of them." He winced as Adam flinched, but he didn't know any other way to make it clear how serious this was. Adam _was _going to have to understand the whole thing and the risk he was running, as best he could, or Harry wouldn't take him with them.

Adam got up and turned away. Harry had no idea what he was thinking or feeling, and once again had the sensation that he didn't make a very good parent. He stayed still, though, and let Adam think.

Then Adam turned back and said, "All right. I want to go. I just want you to go, too, and I want you to stay safe." He stared at Harry and ducked his head, obviously trying not to cry.

Harry reached out and hugged Adam close, murmuring encouragement. He glanced back once at Draco, who remained still and quiet, considering Harry with those mirrored eyes.

At least there was no disapproval in them, and no disgust in them when they rested on Adam, and Harry thought that was as much as he could ask for.


	29. In Consultation

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twenty-Nine-In Consultation_

"You will do nothing rash?"

Draco could feel the movement of Harry rolling his eyes even though they didn't face each other. Harry was bent over, brewing his blood and something that Draco thought looked like ordinary dust in a basin in front of him. He should need all his concentration for the task, but it looked as though he had made this Blood Bubble often enough that he didn't.

That thought did not please Draco.

"You think that everything I do is rash," Harry retorted, turning to glare at Draco over his shoulder. "Interesting choice of words, too, as if I have some kind of contagious disease. I'm going to do what I have to to protect Adam and rescue these other children, if we find them there. That's the truth."

Draco hissed between his teeth. The thoughts murmuring in the back of Harry's head were all united against him, and he had not realized how dependent he had become on finding some contradiction in them that he could, in turn, use as leverage against Harry's conviction that he was completely right.

"I did not mean that," Draco said. "I meant, will you do what we agreed upon, instead of improvising?"

Harry snorted and turned his hand so that some more blood fell into the basin in front of him. Draco would have liked to watch the exact creation process, but Harry had said it made him nervous to have someone staring at his hands while he did it. Draco could have pressed the point that he needed to know the details in order to brew the proper Strengthening Potions for Harry after this, but he recognized that probably part of why the object worked was Harry's state of mind during the process. So he had backed off.

"My strength is improvisation," Harry said. "Do you know how many situations Ron and I wouldn't have survived if not for the decisions that I can make in a split second?"

"This time," Draco said, "you will have other allies with you, and I _must _have a controlled environment because of the way I fight. I can make decisions to use certain potions at certain intervals or for unexpected purposes. But I cannot make a new potion from scratch in the midst of the battle."

Harry grunted, and then stirred some more of the dust into the basin in front of him. Draco arched his neck. It was no good trying to make out what Harry had done, however. The substance was already gone, and he held no packet in his hand that it could have come out of.

"I see," Harry said at last, while the murmurs in the back of Draco's head said _See. Don't want to._ "Fine. But there is something I'm going to ask of you, to keep us coordinated during the battle." He cast a spell on the basin that made his wand flicker too fast to see and then turned around.

Draco felt himself heat and flinch, both at once, as he met those eyes. Yes, he could enforce his will on Harry at certain points, but it was not a bad thing to be reminded of the way that Harry might challenge him, more than anyone had ever done before. "Yes?" he asked in a husky voice.

Before he could scold himself for that, Harry moved a step forwards. "The same potion you used on me. I want _you _to drink it so that I have a link to your thoughts and emotions. That way, if you need to make a decision that will change the battle or I do something that you think is 'rash', we'll both know at once, and we won't even need to speak aloud." He dropped his fingers, which he had used to draw the quotes around the adjective, and stared at Draco.

Draco felt the flush creep up into his face. It was far from a flush of embarrassment; he could feel his cock stirring. "You want that," he said.

"Yes," Harry said. "You've used it pretty well so far. Unless you don't trust me in your mind or something, in which case-"

"No," Draco said, and pitched his voice low, probably the best way to reach Harry when his own started to rise. "I had-hoped you would ask. I simply couldn't think of a time when you would. I assumed you would want that kind of connection with one of your best friends, maybe, but not someone you barely know."

Harry stared at him, and then smiled slowly. The smile made Draco take a step closer to him without thinking about it. "Why would you assume that I didn't know you?" Harry breathed. "I let you fuck me, and I listen to you like I listen to Ron, if not all the time, and I acknowledge that you make sense, and I've fought beside you. So, yeah. I'd like that link."

Draco couldn't analyze all the emotions floating around in him right now, and he didn't think it was the time to try. He moved in, and pressed his body flush against Harry's. Their cocks touched, and Harry sagged back, his head tilting up so Draco could count the cords in his neck as he took a deep breath. Draco reached out and skimmed a hand down his body, tweaking a nipple on the way when he found it.

"All right," Harry said, his tone the kind that made Draco go weak at the knees. "Do you have to go back to your shop to get the potion or something?"

"I had a dose on hand, hoping for this," Draco said. He jerked his head at the basin, hating the way he could barely stand upright, comforted only by the fact that Harry was basically in the same shape. "Do you have to attend to that in the next little while, or can you leave it?"

"Ever the Potions master," Harry murmured, eyes bright and lazy. "No, I can leave it."

Draco nodded, and sank to his knees. Harry sucked in a breath, clenched his hands into fists, and braced himself against the nearest wall.

Draco kept his hands as steady as he could while he undid Harry's buttons and pulled him out, but it was hard when they _wanted _to shake. When he wanted to dance across the room and shriek out loud, in fact.

He might not express it all at once, the way Harry or Weasley would tend to, but he had given Harry time and attention and commitment in terms of his emotions that he gave to few. To have it returned, to have Harry asking for a link that would fill his mind with Draco as Draco's was filled with Harry...

It was more than he had thought would happen. So he opened his mouth and returned the favor, or did something Harry had already done for him, or returned them to an equal balance, whatever one wanted to think of it as.

Draco _knew _what Harry thought of it. The thoughts in the back of his mind shut down for a moment, as though their water-murmur had gone dry, and then coalesced into a great, heaving gasp for air. At the same moment, Harry's hand wandered down and then away from Draco's hair to his own hip, grasping the skin there and worrying it like a dog bite.

Draco sucked, nipped, and turned his head to the side so that his tongue lapped against Harry's fingers. A touch to his head was welcome, as it would not have been for most lovers.

Then again, most lovers were not his _lovers._

And none were Harry.

Harry groaned, and grabbed Draco's scalp, fingers digging in until it seemed he wanted to tear out individual strands of hair. Draco smiled, and licked, and let his tongue wander back until he was lapping at skin near Harry's entrance. Harry shifted and spread his legs wide, but Draco went back to his cock then, and sucked it as deep as he could, shutting his eyes, the better to concentrate on the two sets of thoughts cascading through his head.

_Want this. Want this. Want this. Fun. Didn't think he would...yes, right there!_ said Harry's thoughts, and Draco obligingly moved his tongue in the direction that the majority of the thoughts seemed to prefer.

_This is more fun than I expected, _said his own thoughts, and then stuttered in other directions, like his tongue, as the pleasure grew more intense, and Harry's pleasure fell over him like a tumbling wall, and he had to give more attention to keeping his mouth in place instead of being simply yanked off Harry's cock by Harry's gripping hands.

Harry's hands dug deep, and the pain mingled with the pleasure and the sensation of his full mouth and the soft swelling that seemed to happen somewhere down his throat as well as in the cock he had between his lips...

And then Harry came, and Draco got a hand between his legs and worked himself in rapid jerks as he swallowed. He'd always been good at doing two things at once, and sometimes he did _better. _

This time was one of those. He leaned back on his elbows and panted up at Harry, who stared at him as though he _had _to look at Draco's face or his working hand, one of the two. His eyes were green and glassy, and his thoughts were a single, steady throb of lust from the back of his mind.

That lust finally made Draco's back arch and his own body flood out. He lay on the floor, felt his trousers dampening at the groin, and discovered that he didn't care as much as he had thought he would.

"_Draco_."

Harry dropped to his knees in front of him in turn and kissed him, messy and lapping at the corners of his mouth. Exhausted, Draco tilted his head back and received the kiss as his due tribute, now and then tugging at Harry's hair so that he would go back and nip at some more sensitive part of Draco's lips that he'd missed.

"That was _incredible_," Harry said at last, his mouth wide and parted and his eyes shining and his mind chattering along in agreement, and Draco smiled, considering there might be some good sides to having such an honest lover after all.

* * *

Harry lifted the basin into the air and tilted it back and forth, watching the liquid splash about inside it. It had retained the red color of fresh blood, but the dust had added a gleam here and there, one that was grey or brown depending on the light you looked at it in, like the dust Harry had mixed with it.

He had never confirmed for Ron, and he wouldn't for Draco, that it was just ordinary dust he was adding. They would demand some complicated and magical theoretical explanation that he didn't have. He only knew that it was a symbol of the connection to earth for him, which otherwise the bubble wouldn't have, and that it worked to produce a magical creation like the one that would protect Adam.

"I don't understand why the boy must come with us."

Draco was lounging on Harry's bed, watching him, and Harry didn't think he could hear from Harry's thoughts how graceful he looked, how elegant, or he would have been preening more than he was. Still as disagreeable as ever, though, about everything except the potion that would link his mind to Harry's. Harry gave him a tight grin. "Because I gave him the choice. I promised that I wouldn't abandon him. He could have chosen to stay here, though. He didn't."

Draco frowned at him and tilted his head to the side, perhaps because he _could _hear Harry's thoughts after all and wanted to hear how Harry thought of his hair falling past his ear. "You would trust a five-year-old to make such a decision?"

"Not most of them," Harry said. "And it's different than trusting him like that. Adam went through something that could make him distrust everyone for the rest of his life. Instead, he chose to reach out and accept me, and think that I meant it when I said I wouldn't walk away from him. That promise means nothing if I walk away the first chance I have."

Draco hissed. "You think it will do worse damage to him to be left here than to be brought along?"

"Yes," Harry said, looking back and catching his eye. "Because the Blood Bubble _can _keep him safe, and Grimmauld Place might not. And because there are kinds of damage that can be done to you that make someone a walking shell. They might still be alive, but the chances that they'll ever heal are diminished."

Draco's stare sharpened until Harry wondered what he was hearing from the back of Harry's head to make him look that way. Then he said, "This is more about you than Adam, isn't it?"

"I knew what it was like to distrust adults," Harry said, shrugging a little. "I knew what it was like to have someone keep me in the dark, too, because they judged that that would keep me safer, except it wasn't really safe at all. I was still expected to fight Voldemort, and ignorance just made it harder. And Adam could stay here, but what _does _happen if they take the information from me somehow, or someone else? Or I die and so does everyone else and no one comes back?"

"If someone did survive," Draco began.

"I won't premise his care on that," Harry said flatly. "Besides, Draco, be honest. If you survived, would you want to be saddled with the care of him? Adam should be with someone who wants him, not someone who's just taking him on as an obligation because I'm dead and they feel they should."

Draco's eyes narrowed further. "You did not feel wanted. You did not feel as though you were with people who wanted you."

Harry shook his head. "They told me over and over it was an obligation. At least I _did _have somewhere to grow up, and somewhere relatively safe, but it wasn't a place that made me a strong person. Not in the way that anyone except Dumbledore wanted," he added softly. Sometimes it scared him, when he thought of how close the world had come to not surviving Voldemort because of the way he was raised and the weird and wrong decisions that he and Dumbledore had made. Dumbledore could pretend that he was controlling everything from behind the scenes if he wanted, but Harry knew how much of it was luck. "So. I offered Adam the choice. If he had wanted to stay here, I would have found a way to make the house as safe as possible. But that's not what he wants."

"This could further hurt him," Draco said, his words exquisitely neutral.

"It could," Harry agreed. "But telling him he could have the choice and then forcing him to stay here _would _hurt him. It's a shitty choice all around. What they did to him was shitty. Nothing can be exactly perfect in this, nothing can be exactly right. But I'm making the decision I think will work best."

Draco leaned back with his arms behind his head, elbows sticking out. Harry bit his lip to avoid commenting. He loved the pose, because it made Draco look a little more silly and a little more human, but if he said something about it, at least that way, there would probably be bloodshed.

"You think of yourself all the time as making the best decision you can," Draco said then. "Not the best decision altogether."

"I'm usually in situations where doing something simple and right isn't an option," Harry replied. "That's one reason I started using the Dark Arts. I knew it wasn't right, but I knew it would _work_. Doing the right thing wouldn't, not when so many of the people we arrested had allies in the Ministry or on the Wizengamot."

Draco drew in a slow, long breath, his mouth open as he sucked in air. Harry felt a stir from his groin at what the expression reminded him of, and had to clear his throat and look away.

Draco had the slightest touch of a smirk in his voice when he started speaking again. "I had thought that you always _did _do the simple thing. Perhaps not the right thing. But the decision to sacrifice your life to save the world from the Dark Lord does seem simple and straightforward."

"It was narrowed down to the only thing I could do," Harry said, and shook his head. Discussing that made him feel like he was under a layer of water that grabbed his head and crept over his ears. "I don't know. If I had other decisions, I might have done something else. I wanted to live."

Draco studied him openly enough that Harry turned back to him. Draco's face was soft, and his mouth had opened again, revealing bright teeth and pale pink gums. _If this keeps up, _Harry thought, _I'll know him better than I've ever known anyone._

"Then I will not protest," Draco murmured. "As long as protecting the boy will not endanger either of us or make our task the harder, then I have no reason to object." He sat up and reached for one of the potions he had set on the table beside the bed earlier, his eyes locked on the basin.

Harry nodded. Those were the Strengthening Potions that would heal his magical exhaustion after he was done creating the Blood Bubble.

Amazing, that he trusted Draco to brew those, when a fortnight ago, he wouldn't have trusted him not to poison them. But things did change.

Harry turned back to the mingled blood and dust in front of him, and gathered his magic. It built under his skin, churning as Harry forced more and more power into the same small, contained reservoir. He felt the shimmer over the top of it, like a breeze blowing on water, and smiled. Draco was watching him with further-parted lips, one hand planted beneath him as if he thought he would have to hurl himself off the bed and into the corner of the room at any moment.

Harry didn't know everything about why the Blood Bubble worked. But he knew enough to content him, and it contented him further, right now, to know that Draco was watching him and would see it happen. This was something he had never shared with anyone except Ron before now.

He closed his eyes. The power was making his hands shake, his body creak back and forth like an old tree rocked by a windstorm. He opened his hands, and aimed his fingers at the basin, and thought he felt sparks leaping. He had never opened his eyes to confirm whether they were real or not. Part of the reason this worked was intuitive trust in his own feelings and efforts.

He sighed out the incantation, and the magic slammed into the blood and lifted it up in front of him.

Harry opened his eyes to watch the bubble form, the color of the mixture in the basin, spreading and expanding outwards until it brushed against the walls and the bed where Draco lay. It was more than big enough for Adam to walk around in or lie down in, and it would have space for anything he wanted to bring with him.

The pull to make the bubble went on draining him, reaching deep into him and pulling all the substance out, like blood from a spurting femoral artery. Harry fell into it and let it happen. He had never died from it yet. He was taking a chance that he wouldn't this time, but he took a chance every day that he worked as an Auror. And with that work behind him now, it was all the more reason to take risks. His life belonged to the people he chose to let into it.

Draco started to his feet, as though Harry's thoughts had told him something they hadn't told Harry, but then the bubble stopped moving and forming and just hovered in the room. Harry nodded. It would open, once, for the touch of his hand, so he could get Adam and anything else he wanted to bring inside it, and it would bend if necessary to escape the narrow rooms of the house. Then it would be impervious to change until dismissed, in one way or another.

"You're mad," Draco said. His voice was faint, but Harry didn't know if that came from some lack of breath in Draco's words or just the frenzied pounding in his own ears.

"No," Harry said, and grinned at him. "Mad people are the ones whose plans don't work. This one worked, didn't it?"

Draco only shook his head, and bent over Harry with something in his hand. The Strengthening Potion, Harry presumed. He laid his head back and opened his mouth, and the thick, unexpectedly sweet taste of a potion poured in. He coughed, and Draco reached down and massaged his throat.

"Think of it as my cock, if that helps," Draco murmured, his voice as sweet as the potion. "You _want _to swallow."

Harry laughed, which didn't help with the thickness problem, and Draco massaged a little more firmly to get it to go away. There came a blur of potions after that, at least three, and by the end of them, Harry was strong enough to sit up leaning against the wall. Draco knelt down in front of him with a green glass bottle and extended it.

"My dose of the potion that will link us," he said, and his eyes blazed like sun through snowfall.

Harry didn't need the potion to know what he was thinking. He thought Harry had only come this far on pretense or bravado and would tell him not to take it. He raised an eyebrow instead and stared straight back, and after a moment Draco nodded and lifted the bottle. Harry grimaced for him as he swallowed.

There was a rustling sensation in the back of his head, like a mouse waking up. Harry reached out and put a hand on Draco's arm to steady himself. Draco laughed, silently, but the laughter echoed inside Harry's skull.

_More than I wanted. More than I needed. More than I deserved. _

"I'm not," Harry said aloud, blinking. "We could argue all day about whether anyone deserves someone like me, but I want you, and I need you, and I think that means we can put the question of deserving away."

Draco narrowed his eyes, as though he wouldn't have chosen those thoughts as the first ones for Harry to overhear, but he reached out, put a hand on Harry's shoulder, and drew him in. Harry went eagerly, his mouth already open.

He took in Draco's tongue, and Draco's hesitation, and Draco's warmth, and Draco's thoughts.

_We're gong to do this, aren't we? We really are. Mine._

Harry smiled at the last thought, tried to answer it with one of his own, and deepened the kiss.


	30. In Battle

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Thirty—In Battle_

"I wish there was a less dangerous way of doing this."

Draco raised his eyebrows, but said nothing. Granger had arrived and decided that the world, or at least the part of it currently gathered in Grimmauld Place, needed to know her opinion. Well, now they knew, and Draco didn't see why she would need to say anything else, or more.

"It'll be all right," Weasley whispered, but he didn't look as if he believed his own words, and it became clear in a moment that Granger wasn't really addressing him. She leaned around him and gave Draco an even look.

Draco looked back at her, and said nothing. If it came to that, he was more focused on Harry, whose thoughts murmured of his unhappiness. He had gone upstairs to introduce the Blood Bubble to Adam and induce him to climb in. Draco wanted to follow and comfort him, but Harry had said that he would prefer to do this alone, since Adam didn't trust most other adults. At least Draco knew Harry would hear his opinion on the matter, now that the potion linked them both to each other.

"You have some influence with Harry," Granger said, and then paused to curl her lip and tell him without words what she really thought of that "influence." "Can't you—I don't know, make sure that he doesn't do things that are dangerous?"

Draco laughed. Granger recoiled as if his laughter was poisoned and looked at him suspiciously, but Weasley put a hand on her arm and shook his head, forestalling whatever she might have said to him.

"He doesn't have _that _much influence," Weasley muttered. "And remember, Hermione, Harry's been an Auror for a long time."

"Not only that," Draco murmured, "but he has the right to decide for himself what is dangerous and what is not. I can persuade him. I cannot force him. I am surprised that the champion of house-elf rights would suggest such a thing."

Granger tried to wither him with a stare. But Draco had been wilted by experts, among them his father and Professor Snape, and Granger simply could not compare. After a moment, she turned away with a sniff that tried to pretend this had been her own idea. Draco folded his hands in his lap and tried to look helpful and attentive.

Weasley whispered something that Draco could interpret without hearing it, and Granger snapped back, "I've never seen Harry look at someone the way he looked at Malfoy before he left the room. Can you blame me for asking? For _trying_? That's all I wanted to know, whether he would try."

Draco blinked, and then gave a slow smile that no one else needed to notice. Harry had indeed glanced at him several times when he welcomed his friends to the house and they went over the plan one more time, but Draco had assumed that was natural. He and Harry had had their disagreements, after all, and Harry was the sort who would want those settled before they went to battle, in case one of them died. No regret left behind, Draco was sure.

But if it was different, then perhaps Granger was right and Draco possessed a sort of influence over Harry that no one else did. It would be pleasant, to think he held a unique place in Harry's life the way Harry had so long held in his.

_I can't leave him here._

Draco stiffened and lifted his head. He then flicked his eyes sideways, trying to decide whether Granger and Weasley had noticed, but as far as he could make out, they were still bickering.

That had been an unusually clear thought from the back of Harry's mind, and not one Draco had expected to hear. It had been settled, settled long since, that they would take Adam with them. What else could Harry be thinking of? Why would he decide at the last moment that Adam should stay behind?

And then Draco remembered who else was upstairs, and realized there might have been another reason that Harry had insisted on going up alone.

He turned away from Weasley and Granger, and took a step towards the stairs. Of course, Granger noticed at once and called after him, and Draco turned around, his mind and tongue scrambling to find a plausible lie.

Then he felt a great, silent burst of magic that shook the house like a group of pillows rolling down the stairs. Draco's hand went before he thought about it to one of the more battle-ready potions that hung at his belt. Granger gasped and stood. Weasley was up before her, his wand drawn and his hand shaking.

Then the magic died down, and something was different. Draco did not know what it was. But he had become attuned to the power residing in the house over the last few days, perhaps because he was a Black by birth, and it had changed. Draco took a single step forwards, his hands held stiffly.

Then Harry came down the stairs—Draco was attuned to the sound of his footsteps even more than the difference in magic—and stopped when he saw them, blinking. Behind him floated the Blood Bubble, with Adam, a large stuffed bear that Draco was sure Harry had conjured for him, and several small baskets of what looked like food in the bubble with him. It was like looking through red glass. Draco noticed that even though he was preoccupied with what else Harry might have done. He was still interested in the Blood Bubble and the way it functioned, always.

"Is something wrong?" Harry asked, staring from face to face. "You look as though someone attached strings to you and yanked you up."

_Didn't think it was noticeable, _said his mind.

"We know you did something," Draco said. "We felt the change in the magic. Why don't you tell us what it was, so that we don't have to drag the truth out of you and embarrass everyone in the process?"

Harry half-lowered his head and looked as though he was bracing himself. Well, that was fine. Draco let his hand fall on the nearest potions vial. If he had to duel Harry, then he certainly could. He was not going to let him go, and he was not going to let him always win.

"It had better not be something Dark," Draco added quietly, partially because he had to say it and partially to provoke the fight he thought might be coming on. "We talked about that."

Harry's nostrils flared, and then he looked as if he was making himself drop his hand and step away from the bubble. Adam, Draco saw, was watching them with wide eyes. Harry's refusal to duel probably had more to do with not wanting to fight in front of his adopted child than not wanting to fight Draco at all.

And that was how Draco Malfoy, Potions master and brilliant strategist and the reason that Harry Potter had survived more than once, learned that he could be jealous of a five-year-old. He stroked the glass of the vial beneath his hand, used its smoothness to remind himself of his own age and experience and the reasons _why _he didn't need to be jealous of a five-year-old, and then refocused.

"It depends on what you think of as Dark," Harry said. "I used magic on Moonstone, yes. We couldn't leave him here, just in case he did take the opportunity to escape from the traps, and my efforts to put him into a magical sleep—failed. I think he's protected against such things."

"For goodness' sake, Harry, you could have had Kreacher watch him," Granger said, and pushed her hair out of her eyes. "Unless you think Kreacher's not loyal."

Draco blinked at her in astonishment and pity. He would hate to go through life like she did, looking for _reasons _to quarrel.

Harry shook his head. "It's not that, but he might persuade Kreacher to free him because he has to know about house-elves' respect for pure-bloods. So I took his magic and stored it. For the moment, he's a Muggle, and not proof against a magical sleep."

The silence then was worse than the noise the magic had made. Draco glanced over his shoulder at Granger and Weasley and thought that both of them had better expressions than he did, in that they had expressions at all.

"You did what?" Granger asked, and her voice had icicles in the middle of it, too. Harry folded his arms and shifted his weight. _Knew they wouldn't understand, it was only an application of Galen, _said the back of his mind.

Draco wondered if his own thoughts were responding to Harry's in voices as clear. Perhaps not; he was naturally more secretive. Or they might, but Harry didn't yet know how to read them. Because surely he would have looked at Draco in wonder if he knew what Draco was thinking.

_You are more talented in magical theory than you are as an Auror, Harry. What in the world are you thinking, wasting it like that? _

"I did a variation of the same thing to him that he did to Adam and all the rest of the children," Harry said, backing up with the words as though he assumed he would have to shield Adam from them. So, Blood Bubble or not, he didn't have much faith that the child would escape harm, Draco thought. That was something to take into account and adjust plans for accordingly. "It wasn't taking away his magic forever. It was just taking his magic and putting it somewhere else, and when I think that he deserves it back, or when we survive and escape, then he can have it."

"Where did you store it?" Draco asked, because he could see from the way Granger's mouth was opening and the way Weasley's simply _hung _open that he was the only one who would ask this eminently sensible question. Granger decided that she had to glare at him instead, and Harry gave a faint smile, as though also appreciating Draco's sense.

"In a crystal jar that I can trust Kreacher to keep safe, because it was a Black heirloom," he replied. "And Moonstone doesn't know what I've done, or at least he won't know where I put it."

"That's _awful, _mate," Weasley said, making one of the least productive additions to a discussion that Draco had heard him make since they started working together. "Doing what they did."

"I didn't kidnap or torment children," Harry said, and he held Draco's eyes as he spoke, which was more sensible of him than Draco had thought he would be, when confronted with an accusation like that. "I didn't sacrifice children when it turned out that they didn't fit into my experiments, and try to make sure that anyone who attempted to stop me was imprisoned. Moonstone talked about wanting to experience a different level of power. I gave him what he wanted. Just not in the expected direction."

Draco nodded slowly, and tried as hard as he could to project approval. Harry smiled at him, although it faded when Granger began her tirade.

"Harry, how _could _you? Yes, all right, it might be a clever way to keep him quiet, but it's still immoral."

"Only if we don't come back and there's no way I can let him have his magic again," Harry said, his tone much steadier now than it had been. It seemed all he needed was a bit of support, and he was getting that from Draco. "And actually, Hermione, I don't think it's all that bad. I haven't killed him. I might be able to give him his magic again if we know that there's no way he can use it against us. Do you think being a Muggle is such an awful fate that it's not suitable even for someone who tortured children?"

Granger half-bowed her head, and spent a moment seeming to think. Then she said, "But you did something they did, Harry."

"I've done lots of things that people I hated did," Harry said, his voice speeding up. "Killed people. Imprisoned them, or at least taken them to prison. Interrogated them. Used Dark Arts spells. Honestly, Hermione, is this the breaking point where you tell me that you don't want to fight beside me anymore or something?"

Granger put out a hand, then dropped it. Draco, watching them, had no idea whether he was witnessing a breaking of their friendship or a strengthening of it past an obstacle in the road. He knew which one he would have _wished _for, except that the moments before they went into battle wasn't the best time for Harry to lose his friends.

"We'll talk about it later, all right?" Weasley said firmly, putting a hand on Granger's shoulder and giving Harry a keenly unhappy look. "No offense, mate, but we need to concentrate on something more important right now."

"No offense taken," Harry said, with an easy smile, and flicked his head a little at Draco. Draco could hear the chatter of his thoughts, which none of the others could, about _Don't know why it surprised them, _and _They knew what I could do, _and _What makes this so different? _

_ Because they haven't come to terms with what you are, not yet, _Draco thought back, as hard as he could. _Weasley knew about the Dark Arts spells, but they happened one at a time and in the middle of work that he cared about, too, and he could ignore them. I'm the one who saw you for what you were and only scolded you for the stupid parts of it, not the immoral ones._

Harry's eyes stared straight at him for a moment, even as his body turned back towards the Blood Bubble and his voice spoke to his friends, and there was something bright and complex dawning in them that Draco wished he had more time to investigate. But Harry had to reassure Adam, and his friends had to bustle about getting their own weapons in order, and then they were leaving, and Draco had no chance.

He did make sure that his hand was in place in the middle of Harry's arse for a moment as they filed towards the front door, both a claiming gesture and a supportive one. And Harry leaned back into it, and his own hand brushed Draco's arm.

Then they were out in front, in the bleak grey day this was, and ready for the first Apparition, and there was no more time.

* * *

Draco had told Harry that Harry's thoughts sounded to him like someone talking, and sometimes a river, and sometimes a sea, and sometimes a storm. As far as he had thought about it before he began to hear Draco's thoughts through the connection to Draco's actual mind, Harry had thought that _his _mind might be like a mountain, hard and cold and difficult to grasp hold of.

Instead, Draco's mind was like a snowstorm. Most of the time, thoughts fell past, slowly and steadily, but sometimes a wind would spring up and whip them around, and then they became hard to listen to. And overall was an abiding coldness, a calmness, that Harry simply didn't have.

But other than that, they were less different than Harry had either suspected or feared.

_They don't understand because they don't know what you are, _Draco's thoughts said to him, clear as a patch of blue sky in a blizzard, during the argument Harry was having with Ron and Hermione. _I do. Nothing to do with morality._

Harry bit his lip to keep from laughing at that last thought—he didn't know if Draco had meant him to hear that, after all—but the rest of it, he appreciated. And the hand in the middle of his arse, he liked all the more.

Even if it _did _make Hermione catch his eye and frown fiercely.

Harry understood her objections. If they had time, or if he could have trusted Moonstone more, he would have done something different. But they didn't have it, and there was no way on earth that they could trust that bastard. So he hadn't, and come up with a solution instead. At least both Ron and Hermione knew there was no way they could stand around having a row about it, either.

And that was unfair, thinking that kind of thing about his best friends. He wouldn't have been thinking it at all if not for what he'd done to Moonstone, and _that _was the kind of thing that he'd thought he'd been compelled to do, but what if he was wrong? And what—

Draco's hand reached out and clamped on his arm. They were getting ready for the Side-Along Apparition now, Hermione standing closer to Ron and Draco moving closer to him. The fewer pops of Apparition they made, Hermione had reasoned, the more chance they had of making sure that they could sneak up on any wizards who might be in this particular location.

_Don't worry about it. Ridiculous. _

Draco's thoughts still didn't come through as clearly as he probably wished they did, but there was more than enough there for Harry to steady himself and admit that Draco was probably right, and he was being ridiculous for no good reason. He gave Draco a shaky smile and focused his attention on the Apparition. He had studied the map and Ron's memories of one scouting mission to the location until he ought to be able to summon the coordinates in his sleep. He could do this.

Draco pressed his lips against Harry's ear and murmured, "Let me do it. Just once. Concentrate on towing the Blood Bubble along with us."

"Oh, it goes everywhere I go," Harry said automatically. He would have said something about that before if he'd thought that Draco would worry about it. "It was made of my blood, after all, and its surface tension comes from the pressure of my blood against my veins. It can't leave my side."

Draco pulled back, staring at him. Harry stared back, noticing absently that Ron and Hermione were already gone, and wondered what could be important enough to make Draco wait.

"Do you realize how brilliant a magical theorist you are, and how _wasted _you are in your Auror job?" Draco asked, and his voice was so low and charged that Harry took an instinctive step away from him, eyeing him.

And then he told himself that now was not the _time, _and glanced back, and caught Adam's eye, and smiled, and reached out to squeeze down on Draco's wrist and give himself the moment to relax.

"You get us there," he said firmly. "I promise to stop theorizing and astonishing you until after the battle."

Draco smiled, an expression that was no more than a thin stretch of his lips, and the world vanished briefly. Harry kept his head pointed in the same direction, though, and made sure he was looking at Draco's face when they and the Bubble and Adam all appeared in the small, dim alley next to the building Moonstone and Schroeder had chosen to hold their slaughterhouse.

"There, you see?" he said, and stirred his hand in a circle. "You got us here. I knew you could."

And he turned away and fell into a study of the area, obscurely determined to prove to Draco that his Auror skills had some use after all.

The alley was covered with dust, grime, and the sort of paper and plastic rubbish that would accumulate in a place like this, which no one cared enough to visit. Ron had already stretched the subtle barrier of a Shield Charm across the mouth of the alley, and Hermione was covering him. She frowned at Harry, probably because he and Draco had taken so long getting here. Harry shrugged back and then sprang forwards, his hands clinging to the walls as he cast spells that should give him a spider's climbing ability. Most of the time, it worked, and Ron made too big a fuss about the _one _time it had failed and left him with a spider's ability to spin silk instead.

It worked this time. His fingers stuck to the stones, and his body cringing away, Harry made it to the top of the wall and cautiously poked his head over.

He could see the back of the building, which was made of the same stone that the Ministry walls tended to use, and under a variety of Notice-Me-Not Charms that left a thick dust of distaste on his tongue. There was a door, or so Harry thought; he had to squint through the shimmer of the charms. And there were a number of windows, the small, arched, barred kind that you might get in a Muggle castle.

He slithered back down and ignored the way that Draco was staring at him. If Draco wanted to scold him for taking risks, his thoughts could do that, instead of the white silence they were currently producing.

"No guards," Harry told Ron, turning to him instinctively, because of the way they had planned together in situations like this before. Movement beside him reminded him that Hermione and Draco would probably like to be included, and he turned towards them and nodded apologetically. "I don't know why. Perhaps they think the spells they have on the outside are enough, and guards are better off inside."

"There have to be wards," Hermione said, and her forehead wrinkled in the old familiar way that made Harry smile. "Could you sense them?"

Harry shook his head. "That might be another reason for the Notice-Me-Not Charms. They dull the sense of wards that someone observing might otherwise pick up."

Hermione nodded grimly. "And you can't hear anything from the inside, of course, or see anything that would tell us where to go."

"The windows are too small."

Hermione nodded again, like a general who had expected ambush, and pushed her hair out of her eyes. "I wish I could use a Patronus or a seeking spell to scout inside, but there's too high a chance that someone would see it and report it to Schroeder, if he's here, or later. And we have to hit them hard and fast enough that they can't flee, or get the warning out." She picked up her wand and gave Harry a wan smile. "So I reckon we do it your way, and charge in without thinking."

"Why does everyone think that's my way?" Harry muttered. "I'm happy to have a plan, when I can _get _one."

"It's the not waiting for one that makes us think it," Ron said kindly, and then turned to face the end of the alley, removing his Shield Charm. Hermione came up to stand beside him, and put her hand, and, briefly, her head on his arm. Ron curved an arm around her shoulders in response. Harry swallowed, and felt a brief, bright, bitter envy that he had never admitted to them.

Then he glanced back at Draco, whose thoughts were speaking again, and at Adam. Adam caught his breath and gave a small nod. Harry nodded back, and tried to project calm and reassurance as much as he could, and then turned to glance at Draco.

Draco held his eyes, and there was nothing of the long, warm companionship that Ron and Hermione had for each other in them. Harry knew he would have been stupid to expect it. After all, he and Draco hadn't had each other for long, and their companionship was much more jagged.

But there was brightness there, and intensity, and fire, and that was perhaps the right kind of thing for them.

And so they charged, Harry with his friends ahead and his lover and adopted son behind, and if it wasn't the best charge anyone had ever made, Harry thought it was in the top ten.


	31. In Slaughter

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Thirty-One—In Slaughter_

As they came through the outer line of the wards, the spells reaching for them and then falling back under the combined efforts of Weasley and Granger and Harry's chanting, Draco felt Harry's mind spring to life.

It was unlike the sheer, sleek concentration he had felt before, when Harry was intent on killing someone and that meant all the thoughts in his mind seemed to come together at the same time. This was the water whirling out of its chattering streams and dancing in the air, united by a will that was focused on the battle and went deeper than the will of any single impulse or shallow part of Harry's mind.

_Left, _said Harry's mind, and a moment later a Stunner, fired by nothing human but what looked more like a gargoyle clinging to the walls, came blasting towards them. Harry whirled to the side and blocked it with a Shield Charm.

_Beneath, _said Harry's mind, and the ground rocked, and then a hole opened directly in front of their running feet. Weasley and Granger jerked to an awkward stop. Harry tensed his legs and flew over it like a bird. Draco, with the warning that his mental link to Harry had given him, cast one of his potions in front of him. The grey smoke flowed and churned, and then became a stone bridge, sturdy enough to bear weight at a gallop. Draco nodded to Weasley and Granger, and they hurried to join him. The Blood Bubble had followed Harry over the chasm without a pause, and Draco saw Adam's face through the transparent red side, clinging to his bear, his eyes wide and his mouth open.

Draco lowered his head and ran harder. They dared not let Harry get too far ahead, or it would be easier for their enemies to separate them, and who knew what would happen then?

A moment later, his head snapped to the right, and he saw someone crouching in the nearest door of the building, aiming at them. He honestly wasn't sure whether it was his instincts or his peripheral vision or some subconscious message from Harry that had alerted him, and he didn't care.

Harry whirled towards the wizard, and he was unconscious in seconds. Draco never saw the spell that took him down. He didn't have to. He trusted the confidence that rushed through Harry's mind, and he laughed in the wash of it, in the flood that nearly swept him from his feet.

"You're _something_," he yelled to Harry, though he didn't know if Harry would take notice of it, _could _take notice of it, in their charge.

Harry half-turned his head back towards Draco, smiling, and then leaped ahead. Draco followed, and Weasley followed, and Granger followed, and after some effort, the rest of them had caught up to Harry and were part of a charging pack once again.

The wards were springing to life around them now, shining and flashing, and Draco could hear shrieks from inside the house that probably meant the wizards there finally knew what was happening. He smiled, and reached for the first potion hanging on his belt.

Harry paused and looked back at him, as if picking up on the thought. Well, there was no reason that he wouldn't, not when the mental bond connected them now at a deep level and Draco had already shown that _he _could pick up thoughts from Harry when they were both in the middle of battle. He flashed Draco a smile that made Draco wish they were alone, and then leaped back around and countered a curse that spun and spat green light with a Shield Charm. Someone to the side of the Shield Charm cast another curse, one that appeared to Draco as a line of violet light.

Draco rolled on the ground for a breathless moment and then fought himself back up as he flung the potion down in front of him. The vial rose in a graceful arch and dropped, shattering on a stone. The potion spread out in a thin silver line.

Harry picked up on his intention from his mind, and a bright bubble of contained air surrounded him and Adam and Weasley and Granger a moment later, shielding them from the effects of the fumes. Draco rose to his feet, cast a spell that would allow him to hold his breath for up to fifteen minutes, and watched.

He could have cast the same spell that Harry had if he'd wanted to, but that would have impeded his vision, and he _did _so want to see this.

The potion's fumes rose with a slow, reluctant hiss at first, as if they didn't know what to do and hoped that Draco would give them direction. Draco whispered silent encouragement to them, and imagined that he heard Harry laugh. It had to be imagination, of course, since there were too many other sounds in the air for him to really hear something like that.

And then the real attack came, wizards pouring out of the building as though out of a disturbed anthill, and they ran straight into the potion.

The fumes came to life. They directed themselves at nostrils and mouths eagerly; all they needed was an opening to the body, no matter how small. Draco was sure that he saw some of those who had cast insufficient spells take the fumes in through the pores in their skin. He smiled. Unless one shut oneself off from the surrounding air entirely, as Harry had, or used Draco's particular charm, then one _would _breathe them in.

The first scream came from a woman with bright red hair that reminded Draco of Weasley's. She dropped her wand and stood there wringing her hand as if it was on fire. Ugly blisters were starting to life across her skin, and the next moment, she dropped to her knees and started tearing her robes off.

Draco strolled slowly forwards. The people he passed were disarming themselves, screaming in pain and panic, and crying, tears as huge as the blisters splashing on the ground. That was what happened when one absorbed a potion that would make one allergic to magic. Their robes, their wands, and anything else they carried that bore an enchantment, such as weapons, would make them react now. The wards, if they brushed past them, might cause burns or heart attacks.

And, of course…

Draco saw the red-haired woman tearing at her own skin, crying and vomiting. He smiled. He had no patience for the minions of those, like Schroeder and Moonstone, who would try to snare him and Harry and drag them down, and that meant he could smile at the sight of them allergic to their own magic, which came from inside their bodies. He knew that test subjects had died before trying to cut themselves open to get the magic, and thus the pain, out, and he had modified the potion to make it stronger.

So much for guards.

He thought the incantation in Harry's direction as hard as he could, and a few moments later, saw the bubble of contained air broke apart. Harry ran towards him, not breathing as he did, and behind him came the Blood Bubble, bouncing like a child's tethered toy on a string. Weasley and Granger followed, staring in disgust at the bodies writhing on the ground.

Draco ignored them. He met Harry's eyes, and Harry nodded and brushed a hand across Draco's elbow.

_No one got away, _said his thoughts, and then they faced the building and Harry raised his wand. The doors rocked and tore themselves from their hinges in their haste to get away. Inside was darkness, and a low humming sound that made Draco prick up his ears. He didn't know what it was, but he thought he might, if he was allowed to stand still and study it for long enough.

Harry, of course, didn't allow him that time. He thumped forwards, and Draco ended up rolling his eyes and following him.

* * *

Harry could sense it even before he entered the building, the hum in the earth and the ache in his bones that made him feel as if they were going to break through his skin, but he didn't understand it until he was inside.

Then he looked up, and above him, clustered in a bubble against the ceiling of the building—which was large and entirely open, like a warehouse—was the impossible color of stolen magic.

Harry lowered his head. He had no more questions about whether Moonstone and Schroeder had tortured children here. If they had not managed to get magic into Muggle children, like Adam, then they had, at the very least, taken it out of magical children and _Obliviated _ them so that neither they nor their parents would ever know why they had been permanently weakened.

Harry could feel a rhythm growing within him that played his heart and bones in distinct counterpoint to the magic brewing above him. It sounded like drumming footsteps, the paces of a distant, gigantic beast, getting closer and closer. Harry wondered, for a detached moment, if the beast had paws or hooves, long legs or short ones.

He knew one thing for sure. It had teeth.

He looked around, and saw people turning towards them, opening their mouths, surprised by the intrusion. Almost all of them wore the bright robes of Healers. Harry snarled, his mouth opening and his anger soaring as he remembered all those donations Schroeder had supposedly made to St. Mungo's over the years. Well, here was one fruit of them, and if he was hauled before the Ministry for what he was about to do, Harry would make sure that someone knew about that and could raze the hospital from the inside.

Harry smiled, watching as those wizards began to choke on the fumes from Draco's potion, although Draco's mind had flickered and jumped with the notion that the fumes wouldn't spread far from the place where the vial had been smashed. That meant these people would only get a small dose, a recoverable one, and any children in here shouldn't be affected at all—if Muggles—or would recover in the same way.

Harry intended for them to suffer no pain at all. He thought a spell as hard as he could, without moving his wand, in case someone was still watching them and would be warned, and a steady breeze began to blow from within the warehouse, flinging back the fumes on the heads of those already affected.

Then he made ready to spring forwards.

Draco's hand on his arm halted him, and a moment later, Hermione came up beside him and touched her wand to his temple. She was holding Ron's hand on the other side, and Harry heard her voice speaking clear and distinct in his head. _Hold still, Harry! There's a trap here of some kind…I don't know what it is, but it's thrumming in the earth…under the trapped magic…don't you feel it? _

Now that he was paying attention, reluctantly, to something other than the fact of his own rage, Harry thought he _could _feel it, which didn't slow down his urge to tear apart all the people he could see who might have had some part in this activity. He clenched his fists and fought for distance, sorting through the sounds, trying not to resent Hermione's presence in his head where only Draco should be, clawing for height away from his emotions.

And yes, there it was. The magic caught above them had a regular rhythm, like thumping pistons. This was an irregular one, a stuttering heartbeat.

And it _did _come from beneath them, rather than above.

Harry turned his head downwards. The floor they stood on was not stone, as he had thought it would be, but at best loose stone over even looser dirt. He sniffed, and thought he could smell a damp, thick scent from below. He smiled and reached down to tap his wand against his hands.

_Ungulis defodio, _he thought, the nonverbal incantation echoing in the others' heads down along the chain, from the way Draco frowned at him and Hermione dropped his hand in shock.

Harry shuddered as his fingernails twisted and grew, the magic running into them and digging down to the knuckles before it came running back. The power splashed out the ends, and Harry laughed soundlessly and lifted his hands. He was growing claws, hooked things that were much stronger than their slenderness made them look.

And he plunged forwards and began to dig, tossing aside stone and then dirt in a shower over his head.

The exertion was easy, far easier than he had thought it would be, but then again, he had his rage, even more than his magic, guiding his movements. He wanted the stone _gone. _He wanted the dirt dead. He wanted to find his way to the trap waiting beneath their feet and destroy it, and he was going to _do _that, and it didn't matter how long it took.

"Harry—wait—"

Harry wondered for a moment how Hermione could speak aloud when there was still the danger of fumes in the air, but reckoned they must have dispersed, or perhaps Draco knew another countercharm. He shook his head and continued digging, marveling at the way his arms rose and fell, at the silence of Draco's thoughts in his head, as though he simply didn't know what to do with Harry's actions.

"The trap is probably triggered by something more than the mere presence of strangers in this place, or it would have blown up by now," Draco said, his voice cool as he translated Harry's thoughts. "But no one would think that someone would Transfigure his hands into claws and dig down like that. Harry's weight shouldn't be sufficient to trigger it, either."

"But what if you're _wrong_?" From the sound of things, Hermione was kneeling right on the edge of the deep, narrow pit Harry was digging, exactly as wide as the rise and fall of his arms. "Harry, _stop!"_

"I have to do something with this energy, or it'll destroy me," Harry answered, and continued to pound the dirt. Scoop and toss and throw aside, and now his arms were burning, and now he knew that he would pay for those motions later, but for now, this was all for him, this was the way that he wanted to work, and it was _working_.

"You need to come back so that we can plan!"

"We can't plan anything until we know what we're facing," Harry snapped, and dug, and dug, and dug.

Draco was explaining something to the others, and now his thoughts were alive in Harry's head again. _Can't believe it, thought they would know him better, don't realize what he is? _

Harry snorted into the dirt he was flinging. And who was it that Draco thought didn't know who Harry was? His friends, or Harry himself, or Draco himself perhaps?

But now the dirt was beginning to change, and Harry knew he was close to whatever was making the thumping noise. He paused, only then aware how much he hurt, and sighed. He couldn't afford to stop or give into that, and he summoned his magic to flood him until he felt and heard only that pain beneath his skin, the churning, restless energy of a trapped wild beast, eager to come out.

He listened, and heard the irregular rhythm. It didn't seem to have changed at all, except that it was closer now. But his digging hadn't disturbed it. Harry nodded. Draco was right; no one could plan for all eventualities, and the possibility that someone might break in by turning his hands into claws had to have been low on Moonstone and Schroeder's list.

More cautiously now, Harry dug around to the side, listening. Still no alteration. And no sense of human magic, either. Harry thought he would probably feel it, with his power straining beneath his skin like a sixth sense, no matter how quiet or still the people down here were taking care to be, or what kinds of wards they had.

Then he hit what felt like a shallow, rounded ceiling. Harry paused and cocked his head. What was it? His claws tapped a material that wasn't stone, or wood, or porcelain, though it was as smooth as that and rang when he touched it. It felt like—

It felt like an eggshell.

Harry didn't know what it meant, not immediately. But he did know that it tightened his muscles and drove him on, and if he had to pause in his digging because he had no idea how big the egg was or how to get past it, that didn't mean that he would pause in his efforts to destroy the thing, or Moonstone and Schroeder's ambitions.

"I found an egg!" he shouted up, and then paused. There were noises above the hole he had made, and they didn't sound like noises that his friends would make.

He rolled onto his back and held his claws above him moments before the first attacker tried to leap down on top of him.

Harry maintained rational thought even as his claws drove through cloth and flesh and muscle, into bone, and the man above him screamed and spasmed and died, drenching Harry with blood and fouler things.

They couldn't be that worried about breaking the shell of the egg, not if someone had jumped down on top of him here. And it was telling that the man had attacked physically rather than cast any magic into the hole. Or, at least, Harry thought so. It might mean that a magical attack on the egg would have more chance of succeeding.

Harry pulled his claws from the body and transformed his hands back with a delicate wave of his wand, held in his teeth. Then he cast a spell that filled the hole immediately beneath him with fizzing, spitting air and drove him out in a rush that tumbled him towards the ceiling, and the magic contained there, before he fell back. He landed in a crouch, whipping his head from side to side to take in more at once.

There was the Blood Bubble, with Adam still safe inside it, hovering near the far wall, almost as distant as it could get from Harry without breaking the tether that bound them. And there were Ron and Hermione, backed up against each other and fighting a new wave of Healers in their green robes.

On the other side of them was Draco, a potions vial in his hand and cool eyes scanning the battle for a place to throw it. Harry felt the thoughts in the back of Draco's head dancing up and down, scratching the back of his mind with clicking claws. He still wasn't used to reading them, or the change in them would have told him that the opposition had arrived. He snorted to himself. He would have to _get _better, no matter what it took.

Draco caught his eye and jerked his head towards the back of the warehouse. Harry turned and saw a sleek door there, opening into nothingness. One of the Healers was pelting back towards it.

Let him go through, and he would almost certainly manage to warn someone. And their plan depended on quick strikes and no way for the conspirators to warn anyone. Harry took off in a smooth run, springing over and under curses, and flinging his wand out to stay the Blood Bubble in place when it would have bobbed after him.

The Healer flying ahead of him had pale green robes, and a shock of red hair that flapped and danced behind him in a style Harry had seen a few weeks ago, when he and Ron arrested a Hogwarts student casting Dark Arts spells to impress the girls in Hogsmeade. Harry smiled. An apprentice.

Someone who didn't know as much magic as the others, though perhaps not as many secrets, either. Someone who could be easily intimidated.

Harry cast three spells right after each other: _Levicorpus, Incarcerous, Sectumsempra. _The last curse didn't touch the apprentice, who had already been jerked into the air and hanged upside-down with ropes on him, but it flew past his nose and carved the rock up next to his face in a huge puff of dust. The little boy wrenched his head to the side and whimpered.

Harry slowed his steps in a stalk towards him. The boy stared down at him, and Harry smiled.

"I want to know what you know about magical children being brought here," he said, "and their magic taken from them. And I want to know what you know about Muggle children being tormented to absorb their magic."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." The boy's voice was thin and high, and he lashed out with one foot, as though he thought that would make the ropes go away.

"Of course you don't," Harry said. "None of you ever do, when I want you to tell the truth." He held up his hand in front of him and breathed on it. A faint tongue of fire sprang up, hiding the incantation that he whispered into his palm a moment later. Then Harry extended his hand, and the fireball levitated itself towards the terrified apprentice, coming to a stop—of sorts—right in front of his eyes.

It couldn't escape the apprentice's notice that the fireball jerked closer a moment later, flinging itself along as though it would enjoy doing nothing more than burning his eyeballs out. The man moaned and convulsed.

Harry smiled. "Anyone would think I was fucking you," he said casually, and felt the thoughts in the back of his head change course to say _Mine_. He almost rolled his eyes. It made sense that that was the one set of words Draco would hear him speak, through all the other shouting and noises of battle. "Well. Tell me what I want to know, and I'll let you go."

"You'll—you'll let me live?" The apprentice stared at him with big, wet eyes, and then screamed hard enough to shake the walls as the fireball traveled a little nearer still, drying his tears and singeing his lashes.

"Perhaps," Harry said. "I want you to tell me everything you know about this place, and I want you to tell me the truth."

The apprentice bobbed his head and opened his mouth. Then Harry heard more footsteps, and realized they were coming closer—

But from the wrong direction to be someone running from the battle.

He whipped around and dropped into a crouch, only to see flashes of light from inside the black doorway. Instinctively, Harry slashed his wand down, sideways, and up, and roared the spell he wanted in the confines of his mind. _Finite Incantatem!_

The magic that was part of the doorway vanished. Harry thought he saw the sides of the doorway ripple—he had never seen something like this before, and had no idea if that was the way it was supposed to work—before it went. He also saw someone's open mouth and reaching hands, and suspected they might be torn apart by the motions inside the doorway.

Well. He couldn't find it in himself to let it matter, any more than Draco felt remorse for using the potion that made the torturers allergic to magic. If they were going to do something like that, then they should pay the price.

He turned and met the apprentice's eyes again. The sounds of the battle were dying behind him. Draco must have finally had a chance to use his potion, although Harry wasn't sure what that one did. "You promise to speak to me truthfully?" he murmured. "You will have to, you know, if you want to live."

A hand fell on his shoulder, and Harry might have killed if he hadn't felt the familiar mind behind the touch as well. "No need for a promise," Draco murmured. "I have Veritaserum." He glanced at Harry, and his thoughts shouted, _Do you really mean for this one to live? _

_I don't know, _Harry said, or thought he did. Since what he and Draco heard were more impulses than anything else, it was hard to form their thoughts into a coherent conversation. He nodded to the boy. "Are you ready to come down and tell the truth?" He held up his hand, and the fireball drifted back a little.

"Yes, sir!" The boy gasped on tears the fire hadn't managed to dry, and then bobbed his head several times. "I _want _to."

Harry smiled and closed his fingers, dimming the fire from existence. "Good boy."

When he turned, it was to see Ron and Hermione standing in the middle of slumbering bodies, staring between him and Draco. Perhaps they had seen him torturing the apprentice Healer with fire, Harry thought. Perhaps they had heard his last threat and the boy's response. He couldn't be sure.

He only knew that the rage remained, but he hadn't used Dark Arts spells, he could put it to productive work, and he was going to question this prisoner and let Draco use his Veritaserum. He never would have done that as an Auror, at least on anyone who hadn't given his permission willingly.

But he was not an Auror any longer.

_Never look back._


	32. In Salvation

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Thirty-Two—In Salvation_

Draco watched Harry closely as he stood in front of the young apprentice Healer—who had identified himself as Simon Oakum—and questioned him. Oakum had taken the Veritaserum without protest, although Draco had reckoned him sufficiently frightened to tell the truth. But it was better to be safe than sorry.

He watched Harry's friends, too, who stood off to one side of the building and looked at Harry, or the hole in the floor that had revealed the egg, or, sometimes, Draco, although they always looked away again when they realized he was watching. They didn't like the fact that he had eyes that could look _back._

They didn't like the fact that Harry had done what he did.

Draco wasn't sure what had disgusted them more, his potion to make the Healers allergic to magic or Harry's use of a fireball on the apprentice, although if they had any sense it would be the former. Then again, they might never have expected anything better of him, a sneaky, evil Slytherin. They would have higher moral standards for a friend.

Weasley said something in a tone too low for Draco to make out, and Granger responded. Without removing his eyes from Harry—who so far was getting little useful information from Oakum, who had been rather low on the knowledge pole—Draco cast a spell that would swirl the air near their mouths and bring their words to his attention.

"—don't _know _what he's been telling him, Ron, or teaching him. Do you want to lose Harry to the darkness because neither of us could stir ourselves into being interested in him? _Do _you?" Granger sounded as if she either wanted to snap someone's head off or burst into tears, and might be close to either. Draco allowed himself a thin smile that he doubted either of them would look over to see.

"Of course I don't," Weasley said, his voice a hiss. "But, Hermione, we have no proof that's been _happening._ I think Harry has always been a little Dark, since the war, when he started using those spells he knew would bring results. Malfoy might have encouraged that, but I doubt he really taught him anything new."

_Except how to use the Dark spells at the best of times, instead of the worst, _Draco thought, and curled his lip. Weasley had been present at least once when Draco had told Harry bluntly about how the use of the Retrovoyance Curse encouraged madness. That he did not remember it now, in conversation with his wife, was telling.

No matter what Draco did, he would always remain without the charmed circle of that friendship. Perhaps he should never seek an entrance.

"We can at least make sure that they don't go away together and shut themselves up again," Granger said. Draco had hoped the pause in her speech indicated that she was thinking it over and had decided that she was a fool, but from the buzz and rattle of her speech in her throat, she wasn't that sensible. Ah, well. Draco would simply have to live with the consequences. "I think that's done the mischief. Harry was alone with him in Grimmauld Place for too long. That's why he did things like take Moonstone's magic from him."

"I don't think Malfoy knew about that. He was as surprised as we were when it happened."

Draco cocked his head. _Ah, there is your common sense, Weasley. It is good to know that it is not _utterly _extinguished when around your brilliant wife._

"But he probably encouraged him," Granger said. She sounded calmer now, but that might mean she was simply settling into her lecture mode, her ideas cooling and firming like hardened lava. "Harry would think different things, he would _act _differently, if he was around us more often."

"And how are we going to make that happen?" Weasley asked, with a break in his voice. "Hermione, he took Moonstone captive, and he assaulted Schroeder, and he's supposed to be in prison _right now_. Not to mention that he has Adam to look after, and people will wonder where he came from. Do you really think that we'll be able to keep Harry from hiding away at least some of the time?" He took a deep breath. "Do you really think we should?"

The prophecy was settling its coils around them, then, Draco assumed, marking out the future course of his life and Harry's. He minded less than he had expected. Of course, he would have preferred ultimate free will and for Moonstone and Schroeder not to have corrupted one of his assistants or intruded on his life, but then he would not have met Harry in the same way. It was…a price he was not willing to pay.

_I wonder what I will say to Harry when he comes to realize that both of us are the objects of another prophecy? He has referred to it as a vision, but it is the same thing, marking out the future. Will he see us as equals then? _

Draco paused. There was a thought reaching up to him, a magnificent thought, a teasing one, that drew on some of the magical theory Harry had mentioned when he explained the Blood Bubble's functioning. Fascinated, Draco stood still and let it come.

Then other thoughts broke it and brushed it aside, thoughts that did not originate with him. Draco spun around, his hand on his wand, as Harry reared back from Oakum and stared at him. His thoughts had gone jagged, like mountains with lightning dancing among them. Draco sensed none of their usual watery softness now. He moved forwards, his hand flowing to a Calming Draught that hung among the more extraordinary potions on his belt.

"Repeat what you just said to me," Harry whispered, and Draco realized that he had lost track of the interrogation, occupied with Weasley and Granger's mumblings as he was. They had turned around, too, and watched Harry with an expression of dread that made Draco want to roll his eyes. Of course they would dread their friend having any reaction to the stories of the murder and torture of children, even though a fool could have predicted that those were the tales that Oakum would tell.

"The egg in the bottom of the floor is the egg of an altered phoenix," Oakum repeated obediently. "When it hatches, which should be soon, its magic is going to shed from it immediately. Like feathers. And our leaders are going to use that to make themselves immortal." He blinked up at Harry. "Along with other people."

"Yes, I'm sure that you believe that," Harry murmured. One might have thought him in control of himself again, given the stillness of his hand on his wand, but Draco felt his thoughts rear higher and grow icier. "And why is the egg so much bigger than a normal phoenix's egg?"

"They altered it with some of the magic they drained from some of the volunteers," Oakum said, and Draco snorted. _Volunteers, _Harry's mind said, and his answered. Still, it explained how they might have persuaded some of their more tender-minded Healer dupes to go along with matters, if they had believed that the drained magical children would be compensated for their donations. "It's much bigger now, which means more magic, which means more power for all of us."

Harry half-shut his eyes. Draco wondered if he felt sick because of Dumbledore's phoenix, or because he thought of the birds as "pure" beings in the way that so many Gryffindor wizards tended to. Draco himself felt queasy at the thought of what they were standing on, the unhatched egg of an enormous, fiery bird that might exhibit any sort of behavioral and temperamental differences from the traditional phoenix.

"Is there anything you want to ask him?" Harry asked, stepping away from Draco. "That's the last I can think to ask."

Draco glanced sideways at Harry, because he personally didn't believe that, and then noted the way that Harry's hands trembled, and his emotion seemed to distort his face for a moment. He nodded. Harry had withdrawn not because he could not think of more questions to ask, but because he was a bit afraid of what might happen if he did ask them.

"Of course," Draco said, and sat down in the chair Harry had conjured. "How many of the Healers know about Schroeder's project?" he asked Oakum. "How many of them came along because he had donated to St. Mungo's, and how many were innocent dupes, the way that you seem to have been?"

Oakum hesitated, his eyes fastened on the Dark Mark on Draco's arm, but then he seemed to decide that anyone other than the terrifying Harry Potter was good. He relaxed and shook his head. "I don't know," he said, his voice a little blurred as the Veritaserum began to release its hold. Draco made a mental note to place three more drops on his tongue in a moment. "They didn't talk about things like that. I'm only an apprentice. They didn't want to talk in front of me."

Harry made a convulsive movement behind him. Draco held up a hand for silence and stillness there, although he never looked away from Oakum. He wondered if Harry had noticed the way his best friends looked at him yet, and hoped that he might not have to. "But you must know something," he said. "How many of them were willing?"

Oakum looked away—yes, the potion was definitely wearing off—but the answer jerked itself out of his lips anyway. "They—acted as if they weren't," he whispered. "Sometimes they talked like it, too. But they promised them magic and money. They came for power. And almost all of them were willing."

"Even when they saw what they would have to do to children?" Draco made his voice as gentle as possible.

"Even then." Oakum stared at Draco with blinking eyes, as if he knew what he was about to say next was bad in some way, but not why. "And a lot of the children were Muggles. Who cares about them?"

Draco stood up smoothly and brought his arm around so that Harry's arm crashed into it. Then he turned to face Harry, shielding Oakum with his body, and hissed into Harry's face, holding his wand back without much trouble. Harry's thoughts had gone sleek, but as Draco had been able to control and ground him the first time that this happened, so he was able to do it now.

"_Think_," he said, into Harry's face, into Harry's furious panting and the way that he struggled against Draco without pausing. "Do you want me to fuck you? Is that what it will take for you to regain perspective?"

Harry paused, and the green eyes changed color, while the thoughts slanted back and forth and roiled in confusion. Draco stood still, his hand clamped around Harry's wrist, his body not relaxed but looking like it, and braced for the confrontation he thought they might be about to have.

Granger and Weasley were hovering behind Harry, not as near as they should have been if they wanted to do anything about this. Draco met Granger's eyes and shook his head. She bit her lip, but proved that she had good sense after all, and could trust a Slytherin. Her hand came to rest on Weasley's arm, and Weasley scowled and lowered his wand.

"I can control myself," Harry said at last.

Draco could feel the icy points still showing through what should have been the flowing water of his thoughts, and lingered, his hand tight around Harry's arm. Some of that had to do with the pleasure he had in feeling the tight muscles bunch and release, but not nearly all.

"We need Oakum," he said. "He's the only chance we have of understanding how much of this was deliberate, and how much a trick on Schroeder's part where the Healers are concerned."

"I understand that." Harry foamed in Draco's grasp like a nervous horse, moving to the side so that he could glare over Draco's shoulder at Oakum.

"No, you _don't_," Draco said, and gave Harry a tooth-rattling shake that actually jarred him into looking more fully at Draco, to Draco's gratification. "You act the same way you do when confronted with someone who can't tell us anything, when confronted with what they were doing to Adam in the cavern. _All that matters _to you is getting vengeance. You promised that you would think of Adam first and foremost, but have you? If Oakum could tell us something that might let him speak English again, would you spare his life? Or would you be too angry about what _some _of the Healers might have done to hear him speak?"

Harry stood still, and something flickered deep in his eyes that Draco hadn't seen before. He turned his head, and looked back at the Blood Bubble. Adam was watching. Draco didn't understand the expression on his face, and doubted that he would soon, either. At times like these, the boy's inability to speak or understand English was a small blessing.

"You're right," Harry said, and his voice was deep, and the thoughts in the back of his head were building together in a towering wave of water. "And we've wasted too much time on this one place, when we'll have to strike hard at the rest of them in order to carry out our plan. We need information for that, not anger."

He faced Draco, and Draco raised his eyebrows. Harry's eyes, in some ways, echoed Adam's face, at least in their lack of comprehensibility.

"But now," Harry whispered, "I have to use the anger, or it'll consume me. I'll just save it. I'll use it where it should be used, to destroy the phoenix eggs and any other weapons they have. And then I'll rest."

It was Draco's turn to let his face darken, because he didn't like the implications of that final word. Harry half-smiled at him, and Draco considered letting his thoughts express it alone, but no, he rather thought Harry needed to hear this. "I won't let you die."

"You may not have a choice," Harry said, but he held his hand up when Draco opened his mouth. "No, I don't mean that I'll commit suicide. You're right, I should have thought more about Adam—and Ron, and Hermione, and you," he added, stepping close enough for a moment that his breath crossed Draco's lips. "I meant that this is the last time I'm ever going to use my magic like this. I need—I need to do _something_, but I don't like the person it's making me into. At the same time, I've gone too far tonight to simply stop using it now. So. One last time, and make it the best."

At the last words, he seemed almost to be talking to himself. Draco held his arm until Harry met his eyes, and then said, "_Legilimens_."

Harry's thoughts leaped up, but there was no locking of his shields against Draco; he relaxed them and invited Draco inside, instead. Draco swept in and looked quickly about. There were memories and emotions here, magic, that might tear him apart if he lingered. He wanted simply to see if there was anything there that might counter Harry's words and indicate that he was contemplating suicide after all.

But no. The whole of Harry's mind lay silent and bright under a single flame. What the flame wanted was to burn.

Burn once, and then be at peace. Some of Harry's words made sense now, and Draco touched other memories flitting by, memories of the Retrovoyance curse, and the nights he had spent under arrest for losing his temper, and the clashes with the Wizengamot and the corrupt Ministry hierarchy, and the way he had sometimes seen Granger and Draco and even Weasley looking at him.

He wanted to rest. He wanted things to be different, because living constantly on the edge of a killing rage wearied him and made him feel at least a vague sickness.

But first the flame had to burn.

Draco raised an eyebrow and stepped out of Harry's mind, back into his own body, staring at Harry thoughtfully as he went. Harry met his eyes, his back set and straight, his eyes so bright that it took Draco a moment to recognize the light as anxiety instead of defiance. Harry would do what he thought was right, but he would much rather have the support of his friends than not, as Draco thought almost anyone would.

"Very well," Draco said, inclining his head. "If you will promise me that this is the last time, then I'll help you. Break the promise, and I'll leave you."

Harry nodded, his lips smoothing down into a smile, because that sort of threat was something he could deal with, and then looked around the nearly empty building—if one discounted the limp bodies and the hole that Harry had dug when striving to reach the phoenix egg. "Do we need to stay here any longer? I think we would have felt the magic by now guarding any children, although I'll look before we go."

"I think not," Draco said, and then took out his vial of Veritaserum and stepped forwards, dropping the necessary three dribs onto Oakum's tongue before he could even think about resisting. Oakum swallowed, his glare at Draco shining out unsubdued for a moment before his eyes grew glazed and his head sagged against the back of the chair.

"What did you do that for?" Granger demanded. "It sounded like he's already told us everything that he knows."

Draco shot her a small smile that he knew was mean and petty as he Stunned Oakum and then conjured a floating net of ropes to carry him in. "He may know more than we can think to ask about the other locations. We'll take him with us, and make sure that he speaks only the truth when he gets there."

Granger cleared her throat.

_Here it comes. _Draco turned to face her, and felt Harry's thoughts snap and click together in the back of his head, wary and watching. He must know Granger's tendency to lecture even better than Draco did. Draco wondered how the hell Granger thought she would get away with doing it _now_, though, when she had to have seen the expressions on Harry and Draco's faces.

Harry stepped up beside Draco, and said quietly, "Hermione, I _know_ that what we did today wasn't the best thing, and that I should have thought about it more deeply. But I think I've come up with a way to destroy these phoenix eggs…"

Draco thought as hard as he could, _You didn't tell me that. And you didn't tell me that you thought there might be more than one._

* * *

Harry winced a little. The sheer pressure of Draco's thoughts in the back of his mind was threatening to crack his skull. He didn't regret asking for the potion, but it did take some getting used to, sometimes.

_I know, _he said back, or tried to. _But I just came up with the idea a minute ago, and it's not really clear yet._

After a pause, Draco's mind settled back on itself like a cheetah sitting back on its haunches. Harry knew that he wasn't forgiven, though, and would probably have to deal with some annoyance later.

He'd be glad to do that, then, because it would mean they'd have _survived_.

"It's not at all the best thing," Hermione said, and her voice was a little shrill. "Harry, do you have any idea how many people Malfoy _killed _out there? Or what you could have done, digging down to the egg? What if there had been children here?" She jerked her head at the Blood Bubble. "What do you think about what Adam had to see?"

Harry looked with her, and saw that Adam was watching steadily, his face pale, one hand still clutching his bear. He caught Harry's eye and just stared at him. Harry thought he'd seen that expression, a time or two, looking at himself in the mirror at the Dursleys' or at Grimmauld Place. It was a summer expression. When he'd been at Hogwarts, he was generally too busy to look like that.

"It was awful," he said. "But he's not asking me to go back yet."

Hermione stared at him, then threw up her hands. "Of course you would put that much trust in the beliefs of a child," she said. "Just like you put that much trust in the judgment of a Malfoy, so why am I surprised?"

Harry felt the shift in Draco's thoughts, and knew that he had just classified Hermione as a possible enemy. But when Harry glanced at him from the corner of his eye, Draco simply stood there, looking bored. The shift hadn't been a flinch, then. Good. The last thing Harry wanted to be mediating between was Hermione's accusations and Draco's hurt feelings.

Draco raised a brow that told Harry his last thought had been heard and dismissed. Harry grinned and turned back to Hermione.

"I think it's important, what you're saying," he said. "But for _later. _We need to get moving and go to these other sites, and see if they have phoenix eggs, too."

Hermione didn't move. At her side, Ron shifted from foot to foot badly enough that Harry thought about asking him if he had to use the loo. But he knew that wouldn't be fair. Hermione just made people nervous like that. And Ron was probably worried about having to pick between his best friend and his wife.

_A logical fear. _If Hermione tried to force this issue here, Harry knew what his answer would be, what his answer would have to be. He could only hold back the flame for so long, and if this was going to be his last explosion of temper, the last time that he might ever use Dark Arts—

(And he wanted it to be. Oh, how he wanted it to be. Until the last few days in Grimmauld Place with Draco and Adam, he hadn't realized how much his Dark-burning temper had been part of his life, and how peaceful and fulfilling existence could be without it).

They had to do it now, without waiting for Hermione's moral crisis to be over.

Hermione finally dropped her arms and stared at Harry. Her eyes were bright with tears, her lashes thick with them. She swallowed and said, "You're not going to listen to me no matter what I say, are you?"

Gently, Harry shook his head. He was sorry for this, he really was, but the plain fact remained that Hermione was not important right now. Adam, and the other children he might be able to rescue assuming that Moonstone and Schroeder were holding any captive right now, was.

Hermione finally nodded, and then said, "But we _will _discuss this later, Harry James Potter."

"Glad to," Harry said, smiling this time because she reminded him so much of Mrs. Weasley in tone, and spun around so that he could hold Draco's eyes. "You have everything that you'll need for another raid?"

Draco smiled, his expression lazy and dangerous. "Of course," he said, stepping near enough to lower his head and sniff at the edge of Harry's neck. "Let's go."

_And if I die like this, _Harry thought, as they started the final search for any captives before they left, _then at least I did it fighting beside the person who complements me best._


	33. In at the Death

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Thirty-Three—In at the Death_

Harry whirled around in the middle of their third raid of the night, deflecting Stunners and Binding Hexes and Blasting Curses with numerous, impeccably-placed Shield Charms. He could feel the flame he had told Draco about burning in the back of his mind, although no one would have known it from the way he was fighting.

Burning down its wick. Burning up its time.

They had gone to the second site, the other one that was close to the Ministry, and found no children there, either. But there was a glowing cloud of gathered magic, and Healers preparing for something, and another phoenix egg buried beneath the surface of the stone and dirt under the building. And they had found the same things when they attacked here, a cavern like the one Harry had taken Adam from.

It was coming. Moonstone and Schroeder, or perhaps Schroeder by himself, had planned something, and it was close to fruition. But they still had no idea what it was, or where the other children they had to have _somewhere _were.

Harry let that realization burn through him, at the same moment as Draco flung a potion that emitted a kind of negative light. The Healers and Aurors Harry was fighting all shrieked at the same time, and Harry instinctively clamped spells down around himself to guard his sight and his breathing. He was taking no chances, after some of the potions that Draco had used earlier tonight.

But instead, the flash of light cleared and Harry saw that there was no one where the Healers and Aurors had been. Unless tattered bits of robes and white ashes were what one called "someone" now.

Draco turned to him, and Harry saw his eyebrows clenched down in what looked like pain. He would have to rely on that to tell him what Draco was feeling at the moment, since he couldn't hear any of his thoughts. Draco's thoughts had frozen solid when they entered the cavern and found no children there, either, and now they didn't let so much as a peep of surprise or anger through.

"Nothing?" Harry asked, turning towards Ron and Hermione. They had conducted the searches for the children, after asking to be excused from the fighting.

Hermione stared at the ashes and cloth and said nothing, but Ron shook his head. "No, mate. Sorry."

Harry closed his eyes and rubbed one hand up and down on his scar. He could feel the magic in him, straining, burning, longing to be let loose, and he could feel Hermione's eyes on him, and he wished for both sensations to stop. But the second would only stop when the first did, and he knew it.

He straightened up with a sigh. "All right. Then we'll just make sure that no one else is here who could report us to Schroeder when we leave, and we'll drug Oakum with Veritaserum again so that he can tell us the truth about the next site—"

"This isn't working."

Hermione's voice was soft, but it held a weight that Harry had heard many times when she set out not just to make an argument but to win it. He faced her and tried not to look like he was bracing for a physical battle. Draco moved up beside him, his face probably neutral but his thoughts beginning to chatter again. If it came down to a battle between Harry and his friends, Harry knew which side Draco was on.

But it wouldn't do that. It _couldn't _do that. The thought that it would was just one more legacy of the Dark Arts and the edge Harry had been living on for years, and if he was serious about trying to change, he would have to overcome things like that. He blinked, hard, and then faced Hermione again and nodded. "All right. Why don't you think so?"

Hermione blinked at him, then gave him a tentative smile. Ron positively beamed beside her, and some of the tight clench in the middle of Harry's belly relaxed. It wasn't _perfect, _what lay between him and his friends right now, and he didn't expect it to get all better soon, but at least it was a bloody sight better than what might have been. He wasn't going to pull away from them and isolate himself if he could avoid it, and he knew that that wouldn't be the right thing for Adam, either.

Or for Draco, although Harry doubted Draco would care.

Draco's fingers pressed into Harry's shoulder, and his inaudible voice murmured, _You have that right._

"Because it's taking too much time," Hermione said. "And by now, Schroeder will probably have noticed something wrong if he's tried to communicate with people in any of these places. And the people that you did try to question don't know anything about the phoenix eggs, either. I think we need to go back to Grimmauld Place and regroup. Think about what we know and what the implications of what we've seen tonight are, and then come up with a plan that addresses that."

Harry hesitated. The idea was tempting. They hadn't found any children so far, which meant no one might be in danger tonight—

Draco shifted beside him, and Harry glanced at him. Draco looked once at Ron and Hermione, but his gaze was for Harry, his voice so gently modulated that Harry could barely hear him at first. "The flame."

"What are you talking about?" Hermione demanded, voice low and wary.

Harry grimaced, and nodded. "I don't know that I could come this far again, with all the planning and with you at my side," he told Hermione. "I don't know if I can keep myself from going crazy in the time that we've got left. And we don't know what Schroeder is planning. Moonstone's disappearance must have alarmed him by now. He's probably stepped up things, with the phoenix eggs, because of that. We have to shut this down, tonight, the way we originally planned on, or everyone is going to suffer."

Hermione's jaw clenched. He could see her fighting all the anger that she wanted to bring roaring out, but she finally said, "That isn't reasonable, Harry. We'll have other chances. Maybe the children aren't here because, I don't know, he doesn't have any that he wants to torture right now? That could be the reason. But it doesn't mean that all's lost that they're not here."

There was the creak and scrape of a door from further on in the caverns. Harry turned his head, and felt a magical signature he had some reason to be familiar with creeping along his spine, making his hair stand on end.

Making the flame in his mind quiver.

_Schroeder, _said all the voices in the back of Draco's mind, and Harry didn't bother nodding back.

There was no time for discussion, but Harry and Draco could hear each other, Harry and Ron had worked together often enough before, and Ron could direct Hermione. They cast spells that freshened the air and made the bits of robes vanish, then covered themselves and the Blood Bubble with Disillusionment Charms and backed into the shadows. Harry found himself pressed against Draco, his back to Draco's chest, Draco's arms looped around his waist, and Draco's breath blowing in his ear.

Harry gritted his teeth and told his body that there were times and moments for it to react like it was reacting right then, and this was none of them. Draco just held him closer, and laughed softly and sweetly in his ear.

Then Schroeder and the Healers came into the room—or at least people in the robes of Healers; Harry no longer knew how many of them had been trained at St. Mungo's—and the laughter blew out of him.

They carried children with them, slung on stretchers, unconscious or asleep, in some cases with their heads lolling in a way that Harry knew meant they had been Stunned. All of them had black marks on their skin, or bruises, or faint circles that Harry had seen on Adam's thighs and thought were connected to the way that they put magic into Muggle children. Schroeder showed no sign that he knew anything was wrong; he started directing the Healers to place the children on the floor, ignoring any small marks of the battle that Harry and Draco might have missed cleaning up.

Harry felt the flame swell in his mind. He wanted to move, but Draco's arms tightened and he shook his head, hair swishing against Harry's.

_Not yet, _the voice of his thoughts murmured in Harry's mind, controlled and soft. _It has to be at the time when we have the best chance of actually damaging them and taking the children back, and you know we don't, not yet._

Harry swallowed, and found bile in his mouth, along with a trembling sickness in the back of his throat. He wanted to vomit even more than he wanted to attack, in some ways. Schroeder was unconcerned about what he had to do to acquire this power, he'd known that, but he'd never seen him working around the children like that, stepping over and around their bodies as if they were furniture.

And he couldn't stand back and watch the torture begin, no matter what Draco said. He couldn't.

"Should we wait for Lord Cressen, sir?" asked one of the Healers, a woman with hair that traveled nearly down to the back of her knees. Harry looked at her and thought of a spell he knew for people with hair like that.

_Cressen, name of Moonstone, _said Draco's thoughts, and Harry inclined his head. That had to be a pseudonym for Moonstone, though in this case Harry couldn't work out how he would have chosen it.

And it didn't matter, not really, not next to the sweet viciousness swelling in his belly and the flood of saliva in his mouth, the way he wanted to tear and rend. He shifted his weight from side to side, and the spells surged up in his mind.

"No, I do not believe he will be coming to us anymore," Schroeder said, and although he was bending over a little boy, apparently checking his pulse, and so Harry couldn't see his face, he thought he had read his voice right. There was a thick anger and a dull contentment there, at the same time. Schroeder might wonder what had happened to Moonstone, but he didn't regret the loss of someone he might have had to share the power with.

Harry nodded. The world would not suffer a loss when he killed Lucas Schroeder.

And he knew what Hermione, and perhaps even Draco and Ron, would say about killing a member of the Wizengamot. But he had already committed crimes there was no turning back from. He didn't think this would be any different than the murders, the torture, the destruction he had already committed so far.

"Should we use the eggs this time, sir?" the Healer asked. She had to be a leader of some sort, because she moved backwards and in a slow circle as the rest of the Healers, or people in green robes, did all the work. Harry watched her, wishing he recognized her face. He would have liked to know who he was going to destroy.

"Yes."

The Healer paused and turned to stare at him. Apparently that was a routine question she asked often, not one she had actually expected a positive answer to. Her eyes flickered warily as she stared at Schroeder, and for a moment her hand twitched as if she was going to fling something. Harry wondered if knowledge about the true purpose of the altered phoenix eggs made her all the more wary, and wondered if there was a way that he could spare her long enough to make her tell them what she knew.

"Sir," the Healer said after a moment, "are you sure that—I mean, of course you're sure, sir, but do you know how many preparations we will have to make in order to use them properly tonight?" She clasped her hands in front of her and swallowed. Harry watched the way that the children's chests went up and down and felt himself falling into a sort of trance of hatred.

Draco's arm pressed sharply against his waist, and Harry reminded himself that he had something to live for now, some_one_. He had the feeling that he was doing something wrong, or at least using a method most people would frown about, but he wielded the memories of the sex he'd had with Draco as weapons, chasing back the darkness and the flame.

They went, but boiled just beneath the surface. Harry clenched his teeth. Before, he had been too involved in the emotions themselves to think about feeling anything else, but now, he did. Now, he rather loathed the fact that he was the slave of his own magic, that there were certain spells he _had _to cast.

He wondered if that had to do with his addiction to the Dark Arts, or—

Draco pinched his arm this time. Harry nodded in response and focused on the conversation in front of him again. Schroeder was explaining things to the Healer, and Harry had to know what he was talking about so he would know how to counter it. If they survived, there would always be time to hate himself later.

"The eggs are containers," Schroeder said quietly. "To hold the magic so that it does not fly in all directions, but can be channeled. And shared." He gave the Healer a smile that she returned with a tentative nod.

_Lying, _Draco's thoughts murmured in the back of Harry's head, and he nodded. Schroeder had had the training to look natural when lying that Harry suspected all members of the Wizengamot received sooner or later, but he wasn't bothering to control his face as well right now as he would if confronting Aurors. The Healer didn't seem to pay much attention to the twitching of his right eyelid or the way that his eyes rolled off center and up a little.

"We must take all the magic from all the children, at once, and use the flame that will hatch the egg at the same time," Schroeder continued. "We will have no need of the children as vessels once the egg begins to hatch. The container inside will hold it, and we can then harvest it at our leisure."

Draco hissed against Harry's neck, and Harry reached back and clenched a hand on Draco's forearm, knowing without asking that Draco had figured it out. _What? _he asked, striving with all his strength to make sure that this was the one thought Draco heard, if he heard only one. _Tell me._

_Galen always wanted to figure out a way to affect the magic of creatures as well as humans, _Draco whispered. _But he couldn't discover a way to do it. Something like a phoenix is _pure _magic. It doesn't have a core like a human does. Its power is blended with the functions of its body and flows through it, like a unicorn's blood. _

_And if this is an altered phoenix—_Harry thought, and waited for Draco to finish the thought.

He did, his mind singing in concert with Harry's on the levels of rage and fear, which Harry thought was the only reason they were communicating so well at the moment. _Then that means that they have found a way to change it so that it might have a magical core. One they can take, and affect. But when it begins hatching, the mixture of power in the air is going to bewilder most of the people who aren't used to it, and probably cripple them if they do try to draw on it. Schroeder is counting on that to reduce the competition, at least if he knows the real way to gather it._

Harry nodded shallowly. It wasn't exactly what Oakum had told them, but he trusted the way that Draco's brain worked more than Oakum's, and Oakum had been sufficiently far down the chain that he might not have been told the truth, or ever known it.

_They won't need the children, he said, _Harry pointed out. _So we might be able to rescue them when he's hatching the eggs._

_Do you think we will have the chance? _Draco's hand ran down, fastened on his hip, and tugged hard, pulling Harry back against his body. His chest and Harry's back aligned, and their thoughts seemed to become even clearer and stronger, as if Harry was listening to the wireless. _It will be chaos, and Schroeder will become too powerful to challenge._

_ I came here to rescue them, not to kill him—_

_ You _know _that he will follow you, if he has that much magic, and kill you, _Draco whispered, the thoughts leaping through Harry's skull in waves. _And you cannot leave the children alone. You will not want to. What you want is to come with me. To go to the house we saw in the vision, the prophecy. You know that this is leading up to that, and why fight it? Why try to spare Schroeder's life? You told me yourself that you know your magic needs to burn._

Harry swallowed, and then swallowed again. His throat was dry, and he could still hear the words that Schroeder murmured as he directed the Healers to place the children on the ground, could react if necessary, but his mind was swimming in a torrent of magic and flame.

_You weren't supposed to encourage me, _he whispered back at last. _Aren't you the one who used that potion that made sure I couldn't cast Dark Arts spells—_

_ Against me, of course not, _Draco murmured, and his hand slid up and down Harry's side, coaxing, caressing. _It would be foolish of me to make sure that a mad ally could not hurt me. But I understand you now, and Schroeder is moving _here. _We do not have the time to search out the other sites as we planned on. We have no time for a plan other than yours, and no one else in the room is powerful enough to ensure that we survive. Do it, Harry. Release your magic. Show me, and save them._

Harry managed to laugh in the middle of his soul, hard and high and breathless, so that no one other than the two of them could hear. _Of course you would place saving anyone, even children, after showing you what I can do._

_Yes, _Draco said, and there was a hard challenge in that, too, his mind becoming a rapid blizzard of cold thoughts that tossed scraps of words at Harry. Harry remembered what Draco had said about valuing only some people, and decided that this was another facet of him, another possible gift he had handed Harry to see what he would do with it.

Harry kissed him with a quick twist of his neck and then stepped forwards, his hands extended. Light burst in his chest, and from his head, and from his forehead where the curse scar still waited, and from deep in his mind and his magical core where the flame burned.

_I am ready._

* * *

The first manifestation of Harry's magic Draco actually saw was a shield made of flame, rippling into being around him, and around the shadowy part of the room where Harry's Disillusioned friends stood, and around the Blood Bubble. Draco snorted lightly. It was like Harry to make sure that an already invulnerable bubble was protected.

And it was like him to make sure that no one could interfere. Draco could already imagine the stunned shock that would give way to noise soon inside Weasley and Granger's shield.

Draco did not mind his. It was made of flame that constantly coiled and whipped back and forth, leaving gaps through which he could see. And he knew that no one could bear the magic that would be flying unshielded around the room in a moment except Harry and perhaps Schroeder. He reached out a hand, far enough to feel the flame sting his fingers, and watched.

Schroeder was turning…

And shields of flame went up around the children, and snatched them out of the stretchers the Healers had brought them in with. Draco made out the edges of immense globes, splitting and spitting apart in fire, and then the children vanished up towards the ceiling. Draco saw the fire coiling around them and was sure that Harry had put them utterly beyond harm's reach, either from his magic or anything else.

Schroeder lowered his hand to his wand and opened his mouth to shout something, perhaps a command…

Harry flicked his hand out again, clenched his fingers tight, and yanked. Every single Healer in the room—not that there were that many, said Draco's rational mind under the pressure of his awe—fell to the ground, choking and clawing at the collars of flame around their throats.

_Why is he using fire so much? _Draco whispered to himself. _Simply because that was the form the magic took in his mind? That might be rather dangerous, if he's fixated on a concept rather than what feels most natural to his power._

_No, _said a deeper voice, and who knew? It seemed to originate inside Draco's own skull, but it might well have come from the bond he shared with Harry. _Because the phoenix will come forth in flame, a creature of fire, and it's better for Harry to begin as he means to go on._

Schroeder had his wand drawn…

Harry appeared in front of him, smiled, and held up his hand. Schroeder shrieked as his wand burned, and stood there, wringing his fingers, staring at Harry.

"Tell me," Harry said, in a voice whose softness made the ground at Draco's feet tremble. "How many children are there in the other sites? How many phoenix eggs?"

Schroeder stared at him some more, and his face drained of color. His hand snapped out again, and this time, Draco thought he could see something in it that was not a wand. He fired a thought off to warn Harry.

But it was too late. Schroeder had cast it to the ground, and although Harry's magic rose a moment later, the thing was already diving into the sand and stone beneath them, burrowing down to the phoenix egg buried there as Harry had done in the other building.

Burrowing down to hatch it.

Harry brought his hands together. Schroeder's head bulged, and his body contracted, and he split apart, squeezed into a small space. But something shining leaped out from his head, and Harry caught it and surrounded it with another container of flame.

Silvery liquid, Draco saw, of the kind that one might get in a Pensieve. Memories.

Harry whirled around, and more power poured into the shields around Draco, Weasley, Granger, the Blood Bubble, and presumably the children floating near the ceiling of the cavern, strengthening them. Then Harry turned to face the floor.

It was trembling.

Draco blinked. He thought he saw giant triangles of red and orange move from the corner of his eyes, flipping up and down, like wings beating from beneath the earth, but he was no longer sure if that was real.

And then…

Then the phoenix rose.

And Harry rode the flame.


	34. In Light

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Thirty-Four—In Light_

And there was fire.

Harry knew when he began to ride it that there was no way to master and collect the magic as Schroeder had been talking about, at least not for him. Perhaps Schroeder's memories would tell him more, but he did not have time to absorb them now.

Instead, beneath his feet there was the phoenix, and around him were the wings, and blowing and billowing around him was the flame.

Harry smiled and reached into the center of his power, down to his magical core, and pulled out the flame that he had burning there. He wondered now if perhaps the flame had taken that form because it had known, or anticipated, that he would have to use fire magic to deal with the phoenix.

It could have been like that. It _could _have.

And then he lost himself.

The phoenix was directly beneath him, so that his boots perched on the sleek head, and the wings flashed and flailed right next to his body, and Harry saw the feathers falling away from him down a smooth slope, and the curved red beak snapped and ground away right next to his feet. Harry fell to his knees and dug his hands into the feathers.

They tried to burn him. They were nothing but pure fire, pure power, and Harry knew that only his own magic wrapping him in a protective cloak gave him the ability to withstand it. He hummed beneath his breath and worked his hands down, deeper, further, seeking something solid beneath the surging heat.

He found it at the same moment as the phoenix screamed in fury, and its voice seemed to bound and rebound from the corners of the cavern. If his shields had not been in place, Harry thought, everyone still alive would have been deafened. And perhaps they had been. His flame shields had not included any provision for sound.

But he had yet to discover that a loud screech from the phoenix would leave them with more than ringing ears, either. Until he had some evidence that it would, he preferred to act and react in the now, and trust that his shields would hold.

The phoenix came to rest on something that might have been a ledge halfway up the cavern, or the tattered remains of its own egg, and crouched there for a moment, wings spread and draped along itself, body shuddering. Harry heard the hiss and crackle of the flames as they sought for something to feed on, and the hiss of his own magic as it fought back. He took a deep breath, delved his hands further into the heat, fed some of his power into the muscles of his arms and shoulders so that they grew sleek and large, and then _heaved._

The phoenix shifted and screeched, and flying gouts of blood came away in Harry's hand. He tossed his right hand to the side, so that the blood struck the phoenix's feathers, and plunged the left hand deeper, or he would have lost his grip. And the phoenix was shaking beneath him, shaking its head from side to side and its wings up and down. Harry did not know where he would fall if he was tossed. Best to stay astride, for now.

The wings pumped up and down, the great talons that he could sometimes see flashing ruby-bright through the gold and orange flames gripped and then pushed, and then they were flying, up and up. Harry thought the phoenix probably hoped that it could smash him against the roof of the cavern.

Harry laid himself flat along the phoenix's head, and closed his eyes. He didn't know where his wand was at the moment; it might have burned like Schroeder's. But he had done this once already tonight, and he could hope that his fingers remembered.

They did. His fingernails curved into claws again, and Harry went to work, digging into the phoenix's face as if it were made of rock and sand.

The phoenix went mad.

It tossed its head from side to side, singing in a furiously high voice, wings beating and strobing now like pulses of Harry's own heart. Harry laughed, and was a little surprised to hear the sound come out so high and shrill, as though he was a phoenix himself. He shifted to the side, and his claws found its eyes.

The phoenix either decided to defend itself or began to die; Harry thought that his claws might have sliced into its brain behind the eyes. He dug deeper and then closed his eyes and reached into his magical core, finding everything he could there, scooping and digging and _demanding _that it come to him.

And it did. The flowing magic was a cascade of warmth and power that made Harry feel as if he had been supercharged with adrenaline. And he put it to good use, surrounding himself with an inner bubble of protection much like the one he had used on Adam, and then reaching out and constructing another container like the cracked halves of the egg that the phoenix had come from, weaving it of coruscating fire.

The magic all around him flourished and thumped in many directions, glowing and spinning and wheeling, wild—

And Harry slammed the halves of the egg shut around it and held it, motionless.

The magic paused for a moment, as though in reaction to feeling the cage close around it. Then it, in turn, went mad.

Harry could never relive the next moments in a way that made any sense. He was tumbling, and he was spinning, and he was dancing with a partner made of sharp-edged flames that wielded a sword against him instead of dance movements, and he was—

He was rising on a jet of fire, and the magic that came from him contended with the magic that came from the phoenix (the absorbed magic that Schroeder and Moonstone had hoarded, he understood now, because it was better to have it all released in one glorious explosion and absorb it that way than pluck it by one by one from the chest of any number of children), and his magic was winning.

But at a cost. Harry could feel it draining him, absorbing _him_ in turn, drawing more and more power from him so that it could continue to contend, and he knew that the chances he would survive this were remote.

But he wanted to. For Adam's sake, for Draco's, for the sake of the other children that might exist in the vision Plumm had seen. And he bent himself to the task, winding more magic around his core, using it to bolster himself in ways that he barely understood, holding and cradling and valuing himself in ways that he would never normally have done, ways that Draco had taught him to do.

He used the memories of sucking Draco, and Draco fucking him, and Draco sucking him, as warmth of their own. He draped himself with blankets and tapestries of power and what he wanted to survive and go back to, and all around him was the greater force of the hammering magic.

Harry held up to it. He stood up to it. He resisted it, and he resisted, as well, the temptation to try and take it into his core instead of merely caging it. He could be so strong that way, said the voice of temptation, and not have to worry about how much strength it was taking him to hold the phoenix's magic—

That was the temptation Schroeder and Moonstone had faced, and succumbed to. Harry shook his head and continued rising, continued holding, continued caging. It was fighting on defensive and offensive fronts both at once, and it was tiring. But he had chosen his course.

There was a long, low snarl that seemed to vibrate both inside and outside himself, and Harry felt the course of the magic change and turn, as though it had found another way out of the trap he had designed for it. He raised his head—it was the first time in a long time he had been _aware _of having a head—and stared around warily.

The magic was sneaking out of the shell next to him, in trailing streamers of gold and red. Harry reached out and began to clamp the halves of the shell once more, concentrating so that he could forget his weariness and pain, his small chance of holding the trap he had designed like this, and even his fear of death.

_Harry._

The words were in his mind, but seemed to come from deeper than that, perhaps from his own deep thoughts and subconscious impulses that Draco was able to hear. Harry hesitated, wondering if this was another trick of the magic. It could very well be, if it would try anything to escape from him and rage through the cavern.

But, just for a moment, he opened himself to it, and awaited the consequences.

Draco's cool thoughts enfolded him, a gentle blizzard that quenched some of the burning. He felt his skin smoothing out, relaxing under the pounding of the snowflakes, and Draco's thoughts murmured, _You soared up so high that I thought you would break out of the cavern. But I can see no trace of the phoenix, and no trace of Schroeder. Can you come back to us now?_

Harry swallowed and nodded, and remembered that he had wanted to live. _I think I can, _he said, and found that his mouth wouldn't work when he tried to speak the words. But he could say them in the back of his head, and Draco was as likely to hear them there as elsewhere. _But I don't know if I can manage to come back unchanged._

_Simply come back._

Draco's inflexible murmur in his ear made Harry smile. He found himself rising to his feet, his hands extended in front of him, his eyes closed. And the magic poured out of his core, and the shell next to him expanded and turned and gathered up the escaping power again, the power that had been the phoenix's, that had belonged to wizards at first, that had been changed to give cores to Muggle children.

Schroeder and Moonstone had not cared who they hurt, what they had to do, in order to gain power.

But Harry did. And he had killed as many people as he wanted to kill, as many as he would kill again unless he had to do it in defense of Draco, or Adam, or his friends.

For the moment, he did something else. He turned the magic inside out, gave it a purpose, and asked it to find him the children who needed him, the ones shrouded in the flame-globes who, like Adam, could not immediately return to the Muggle world.

There was a long, silent moment when flames flickered around Harry and he wasn't sure the magic would listen to him. But then it turned, and then it curled around his shoulders, and a series of small voices sang in chorus in his head, saying, _This way, this way, this way._

Magic, it seemed, was more than happy to work in partnership with someone who was not trying to steal it.

Harry hopped off the unclear thing he was standing on—which turned out to be a ledge up near the ceiling of the cavern—and forged his way awkwardly through what felt like ankle-deep mud over to the side and down. At one point he realized that he was walking in air and not on stone. He hushed the realization and put it away like he had Moonstone's magic. He had no use for it right now.

Then he was in front of the hanging nets of flame that he had used to conceal the children from the explosion of magic, and he reached out and parted the nearest veils. The children inside stared at him.

The magic shot out and curled like crowns on the heads of a girl and two boys. Harry saw the girl, who was older than the rest, shift to look at him, and the sight of those grey eyes and that blonde hair troubled him. For a moment, he thought it was only because she could have been Draco's daughter in resemblance.

And then he knew, and flinched, which made the children flinch, too. They were the faces of the children in Plumm's vision, the one she had told him was a vision of the future, the children Harry had seen in the garden of that distant house where he and Draco sat side-by-side.

But not quite as old, he realized after a moment. The two boys in particular were younger than he had thought they would be. That meant—that meant some more time had to pass before the vision came true, then. And he didn't know why these children needed him and couldn't be allowed to return to the Muggle world, yet.

Then the girl moved so that she was facing him and raised her hand, and Harry found out.

Several small flames surged towards him, and wouldn't retreat when Harry glanced at them. Harry had to shield his face and then call up a few shields before they would stop. Even then, the girl kept motioning as though she was trying to push them towards him.

Harry leaned back and stared at her, shaking his head. The girl seemed to accept after a moment that his gesture wasn't hostile, and dropped her hand, but never took her eyes off him. In her face was a glimpse of the same darkness that Harry had seen in Adam's. Maybe a little worse, since the Healers must have changed her more than they had him. Adam had Parseltongue, a single gift.

This girl had wandless magic.

_The boys, too, maybe, _Harry thought, glancing at both of them. They huddled together, watching him.

And that was the answer. That was why he was going to wind up taking care of these children. Because he had to, because there was no one else. He was the only wizard in the country—perhaps the world—who could speak to Adam right now, and he was a powerful wizard who had, in his time, had his magic swirl around him and respond in much the same way that these flames responded to the girl. Most people would be afraid of her, or want to _Obliviate _her and shove her back into the Muggle world, no matter how dangerous that would be for other people, simply to eliminate the problem. Harry could face her power with his, resist it if that was what he had to do, and teach her how to control it.

More responsibilities. More choices. Harry wondered briefly how Draco would cope with it, if Draco would really want to stay with him.

Then he half-shrugged. He suspected that Draco would fight to stay with him no matter what, and that meant putting up with the children. He might even enjoy the chance to see the living embodiment of Galen's notes using their powers, and seeing what both Galen and Schroeder and Moonstone had done wrong.

_I only hope that he can accept all of this._

_ What are you nattering about, Harry? Come back to me._

Well, so far he had put up with Harry's hesitations and madness and thoughts in the back of his head, and not killed him. Harry took a deep breath and nodded to the children.

"It's going to be all right," he said, and then concentrated on the image of a snake and repeated the words in Parseltongue, for those who might understand only that. One of the two younger boys uncoiled and stared at him, and Harry smiled tentatively back at him. "I'll get you out of here. The people who hurt you are dead. They won't be coming back anymore."

The boy who had reacted when he began to speak Parseltongue shook his head and said, "They will. They always have another whip." He stared at the flames as though expecting them to change into whips immediately.

Harry controlled his anger at the words. They told him a little about what life had been like for these children, and he wished it could have been different, but the time and place to make it different was in the future, not now. He held out his hand. "Will you come with me? Some of you will be able to go home now, and the rest can at least find safe places."

The girl was the first one to move, reaching out and grabbing his wrist as though she thought he wouldn't be able to hit her that way. Once again, Harry held in his immediate reaction and waited until she switched her grip from his wrist to his hand and then crawled towards him. He put his arms around her shoulders and arched his eyebrows at the others.

The boy who spoke Parseltongue came next, and then the others started asking questions about how they were going to get to the floor when Harry was holding the girl, and what held them up, and what had happened, and where their parents were, and when they could go home. Harry murmured answers to the ones he felt he could reply fairly to, and then stepped backwards and turned towards the cavern floor.

Because there was the cavern again, and the bodies of the dead Healers, and the crack in the floor where the phoenix had hatched out. Harry stirred his hand and made flame billow up and swallow the Healers' bodies. He didn't want those lingering to hurt the minds and memories of the children.

Draco stood near the place where the bodies had been, the shield around him dissipated, looking up.

Harry didn't think his eyes widened in recognition when he saw the girl in Harry's arms, but his face did go pale, and he nodded, once. Harry smiled at him, and murmured in the back of his mind as he created tiny sleds of flame for the children to ride to the ground, _You'll come with me? All of us, as the vision showed?_

_All of us, _Draco's thoughts echoed, which was less of an answer than Harry wanted, but which he certainly wasn't about to reject. He sat down on the largest sled with the girl still in his arms, and the little boys who would become his right beside him, and they coasted to the ground.

By then, the shields he had woven around Ron and Hermione and the Blood Bubble were gone, and his friends came slowly out to meet him, while the Blood Bubble snapped towards him on the edge of its tether. Harry smiled at Adam and stood up, placing the girl and the boys close beside him before he turned to make sure that the other children were getting down safely.

Adam watched him intently, his hands against the side of the bubble. Harry wanted to let him out, but he wasn't entirely sure that the threat was done with. More Healers might show up in a short time.

And there was the fact of Moonstone, waiting for Harry to determine his final fate, asleep back in Grimmauld Place.

Harry grimaced and rubbed his hand over his face. _You think that you're abandoning everything you ever knew for a different life, and it turns out that there are a whole bunch of things you have to think about before you can do that, after all._

_I will never give you license to be thoughtless._

Draco. Harry stuck out a hand without looking, knowing that Draco would find it, and sure enough, Draco's hand was there. Harry took a moment to enjoy his smooth palm and the lines winding over it, between his fingers and down to the heel, before he turned to face Ron and Hermione.

Hermione shut her tear-bright eyes and swallowed. Ron stood beside her, his arms cradling her in much the same way that Draco had cradled Harry when they were under the Disillusionment Charm watching Schroeder and the Healers, and swallowed, too, when Harry caught his eye.

"You killed them all," he whispered. From the corner of his eye, Harry saw the little girl look up. Draco watched her with a strange mixture of emotions on his face that smoothed over into blankness a second later, as if he didn't want to show too much in front of Harry's friends or the other children.

"Yes, I did," Harry said. He felt the enormous empty place in him where the flame had burned earlier and sighed, rolling his head back on his neck. "And if more people show up and try to do the same thing, I'll kill them, too."

"Don't you have a bit of regret?" Hermione whispered. "I know that you took his magic away from Moonstone because he was the immediate threat, and you had to kill Schroeder, maybe, but don't you have a bit of regret for the Healers who were tricked into this?"

Harry shrugged. "I don't know who was tricked and who wasn't. What matters to me is what they did. And if they helped with this torture, then they deserve to suffer and die."

"Including Oakum?" Hermione looked back towards the entrance of the cavern, where they had left the net holding their Veritaserum-drugged spy.

"He helped us, too," Harry replied, after a moment during which he considered the question and Draco stood silent and passive at his side, indicating he would abide by whichever decision Harry made. "He can live."

Hermione gulped this time, and glanced at the children, who were starting to ask questions again, and stare, or who stood with heads down and eyes empty and fists clenched, or who watched Harry carefully and looked as though they wanted to stay next to him, in the case of the girl and the boy who spoke Parseltongue. "I wish that you weren't making decisions like that," she whispered. "I wish things were different."

"You mean you wish that things were different because it would make you more comfortable," Harry corrected her harshly. "I can't wish they _were _different, Hermione, because that would mean that Schroeder and Moonstone and the others who tortured them were still alive, and that's not good enough. Nothing but their deaths will ever be good enough."

"For _you_," Hermione said, looking him in the eye. "Not because anyone else asked you to do this."

"Yes, that's right, for him," Draco broke in, long before Harry had expected him to do so. "Who else should he be judging by? Who has the ability to decide Harry's actions for him, and why do you think _you_ can?"

Hermione turned her head away. Ron stood beside her, looking anxiously back and forth between them, and not looking as though he understood what to do next.

Harry shook his head and turned his back to kneel down beside the other boy who spoke Parseltongue. He would begin asking the questions needed to get the children back to their homes, or determine why they couldn't go back, with this child, so that he wouldn't feel as left out when the others began speaking English.

"Are they all gone?" the boy asked, staring at him.

Harry nodded. "What's your name?"

"Emery," said the boy, and gave him a hesitant smile.


	35. In Decision

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Thirty-Five—In Decision_

"You don't have to leave the Ministry if you don't want to."

Harry didn't look up at Ron as he spoke, instead focusing on the four small conjured beds in front of him. He had asked Adam if he was all right sharing his bedroom with the new children, and he had agreed at once. So Adam, Emery, Paulette—the girl with wandless magic—and Walter, the other little boy whom the magic had told Harry was going to be his, now lay asleep in the same room at Grimmauld Place. Harry hadn't yet learned what power Walter had, but the shadowy cat that had appeared from nowhere and coiled up on top of his shoulders might be a clue.

"Did you hear what I said, Harry? Once people know what was going on, there's no way that they can condemn you. They might even think that you're a hero for freeing those children."

Harry said nothing, but he did nod. The way that Ron spoke was the way that things might work out, if Harry had the patience for them and said the right thing at all times and was willing to work for months to reestablish his credibility. And that would take away from the time that he might spend with Draco and the children ahead, how he might get to know them and make up for any harm his actions might have caused them.

The other children were home now, the ones who could go there. They remembered their last names, or their parents' names, or the names of the towns they had been stolen from, or they had memories of their houses intense enough that Harry and Draco and Ron and Hermione could use them as Apparition coordinates. They would be shocked and scarred for a long time by what they had seen, Harry thought, but it was better for them to recover with their families. They had wanted to go home.

And their families might be frustrated at the lack of answers, might want to know, but at least this way meant that they would have their children back, if not the answers. Harry found it hard to imagine the relief that would be.

Or, maybe he didn't, not now that he was a parent himself. He had known blinding relief when Adam climbed out of the Blood Bubble and straight into his arms, forgiving him for what Harry had put him through.

"I don't understand why you won't at least _try_."

Harry sighed and turned to Ron. There was a plaintiveness behind the words that proved Ron understood what some of the problem was, and so Harry thought he deserved an answer. He motioned Ron out into the corridor before he replied, though, so that he could shut the door behind them and avoid disturbing the children.

"Because I don't want the kind of life that the Ministry would encourage me to devote myself to," he said quietly, meeting Ron's eyes. "The Dark Arts again. The relentless investigation. Barely any time to spend at home. The fighting against corruption, and Wizengamot members who would never forgive me for killing Schroeder—or for figuring out a way to dupe the guards and make them think that they were holding Harry Potter in prison all this time—and try to trip me up. No, Ron. I didn't realize how much I wanted something different to do and think about until I started spending time with Draco and Adam. No. I want that different thing, now."

Ron shook his head. His face looked pale in the faint light that came up the stairs. Hermione and Draco were in the kitchen, and Harry reckoned they were either getting along well, or someone was dead by now. "But, mate, _why_? When did this happen? Just a few weeks ago, you were devoted to your work."

"Because I had nothing else," Harry said simply. "That would be one thing if I had chosen to be, well, isolated and alone are the proper words for it. But I simply never looked elsewhere or tried to _choose _anything outside of that. And I want to choose it, Ron. I want to show the world, and myself, that Harry Potter has better things to spend his time on than merely Ministry politics."

"Our Auror jobs aren't always politics," Ron began.

"But I'll be involved in them as long as I live, if I go back, because of who I am," Harry said. "And how many arrests did we lose because of corruption? How many times did we think that we had someone safely locked up and then he got out again because he was related to one of the Wizengamot members or someone higher up than we were on the Ministry hierarchy? No. I like being able to act without hesitation, because there's a cause in front of me that commands my complete devotion. And the children need it, and I don't think Draco will be willing to settle for less," he added, with a faint smile.

"That won't be enough to content you forever," Ron said. He took up a stance in front of Harry as though he was going to charge him, absurdly. Harry stared back at him, and Ron had the grace to lower his hands again and look a little embarrassed. "What—Harry, what are you going to _do _with yourself when the children are grown up? Or if you and Malfoy end up leaving each other?"

"I don't know yet," Harry answered easily, and felt a strange happiness bubbling up in him, like champagne, when Ron stared at him and shook his head. "But I know what will happen if I go back to the Ministry. More bitching, more anger, more attempts to control me and sack me when I do something that the powers there don't like. I've had enough of it. This is better, though. This way, I get to burn my credibility with them up in a blaze of glory for a worthy cause, instead of trying to murder some harmless flunkey who doesn't really deserve it someday."

"And there's nothing I can say to make you change your mind," Ron whispered.

"None." Harry reached out and squeezed his friend's shoulder kindly. "I know it's not really fair to you, depriving you of your partner like this, and I'm sorry for that. But I think it's for the best that I leave now. Like I said, it would only have been a matter of time until I _had _to leave. This is better," he repeated.

"Just tell me one thing," Ron said, when he had closed his eyes and stood there with his head practically hanging down in despair for the few minutes it seemed to require. "Was it Malfoy who put you up to this?"

"No," Harry said quietly, and let his smile fade as he looked Ron in the eye. "I think I would have wanted to leave even if I hadn't met him. He's just an additional incentive, and he definitely is the one who made me see how many Dark Arts spells I was using, and why they were bad for me."

Ron nodded slowly. "So your decision is going to last even if he and you—even if you don't last?" he asked.

"Yes," Harry said. "Sorry."

Ron swallowed, then said, "Don't worry about me. They've been wanting to partner me with someone else for years, and some of the choices they've offered aren't _too _bad. I want you to be happy, Harry, and it sounds like this way, you might be." He shot a hand out and closed it convulsively down on Harry's arm. "So long as you are, that's all."

"I think I will be," Harry said, and held Ron's gaze, smiling, until he turned away and roughly wiped a hand over his eyes.

"Good," he said. "Now let's go find out what Hermione and Malfoy are up to. I'm surprised that we haven't had to dodge curses yet."

* * *

"You were the one who put Harry up to this."

Draco kept his eyes on the kettle, which he had volunteered to use even though the ridiculous house-elf wanted to do it, because it would give him a slight distraction from Granger's accusations. He shook his head, and made sure the motion looked absent, idle, because he knew nothing would upset Granger more. "Me? Of course not. If I had my way, he wouldn't have sacrificed his career like this. He would have done something subtle and vicious but not Dark, and made sure the Wizengamot knew everything their darling Schroeder was up to, and deprived Moonstone of the ability to ever finance any grab for power again while leaving his money intact. This accomplishes the goal, I must admit, but it lacks the flexibility and elegance that distinguish my projects."

In the silence that accompanied Granger's half-strangled breathing, the kettle came to a boil. Draco Levitated it smoothly off the fire and over to the table waiting for it; by the time it landed, he had already performed all the other necessary charms to make the tea. He poured two cups, mismatched but a kind of expensive ivory that Draco couldn't help but approve, and held one out to Granger.

She folded her arms and leaned back against the wall, away from him, every cell of her body all but radiating loathing. "I don't want to take _anything_ from you," she said violently.

Draco nodded, and sipped his own tea, and smiled. "Then you shouldn't want to whisk Harry away from me, either."

"You're the reason that he did that," Granger whispered. "That he _murdered _people in so many horrible ways. He didn't act as though he cared. He kept us from participating in the battle, and then he _murdered _Schroeder, and he took Moonstone's magic away, and he acted as though nothing mattered to him but _winning_…"

"In battle with enemies like these, nothing should," Draco interrupted her. "Let me say that _I _was impressed that Harry didn't let his moral scruples stop him or slow him down when it came to winning. I thought he would, and that would have been fatal."

Granger closed her eyes and did some deep breathing for a moment. She was the first person Draco had ever seen who seemed inclined to believe that worked. He sipped his tea and smiled at her in fascination, shaking his head.

"_You_," Granger said, opening her eyes at last, "have a twisted sense of morality. You can't see that the multiple murders that Harry has performed have been wrong? Perhaps you could convince me that he was right to kill Schroeder—although he should still have had a fair trial and let everyone else see the true extent of his evil—but the Healers? What if some of them genuinely didn't know what they were doing?"

"They tortured children," Draco said, taking another sip and rolling the tea around in his mouth. "I'd say it's pretty hard to mistake that for anything else."

"But they didn't know the _purpose_," Granger retorted harshly, folding her arms more tightly, as if she was cold. "They couldn't. Schroeder and Moonstone didn't share everything about Galen's notes with them, or they would have clamored for power of their own and probably tried to backstab them."

Draco burst out laughing, and Granger bristled at him, but Draco didn't really care about that. Honestly, Granger was brilliant in her contradictions and the messes and mistakes that she snared herself in without even realizing it. "So," he said, when he regained control of himself and saw Granger staring at him like a cobra charmer trying to control his snakes, "you think them evil and ruthless enough to desire power, but somehow innocent enough not to torture children?"

Granger coiled into herself a little more. "I work with people who are ruthless and power-hungry every day," she snapped. "None of them are torturers."

"I think you would be surprised," Draco murmured peacefully. "But in a way, what you are saying makes the Healers _worse, _if they didn't know why Schroeder and Moonstone were ordering them to torture these children, and went along with it anyway. The most deep-seated belief in power and the inferiority of Mudbloods—"

Granger tried to cast at him. Draco raised a shimmering shield of flame in front of him; he had been working out how Harry did it in his head all evening, and now he was ready. It burned Granger's curse to harmless sparks and left her staring at him with narrowed eyes.

"My pardon," Draco said, and then went on, because Granger wasn't in the position to stop him. "As I was saying, those beliefs are preferable to me because it means that the person who holds them acts out of a certain kind of principle, and you can trust them to do one thing and not others. But if they did what they did for money, or because their superiors ordered them to, and never questioned it? That makes them criminals, Granger. Villains, of the kind that _I _would shudder to own as comrades. I am glad they are dead. I am _glad _they are gone. And with them goes the knowledge of what happened with Galen's notes, I think, and that means that no one else should try the same thing any time soon."

"Moonstone might," Granger muttered, and wound her arms tighter around herself still. "Harry said that he didn't think any Memory Charm would take on him, and that means someone else will dig out what he was up to sooner or later."

Draco raised his eyebrows at her. "And what makes you think that Moonstone will be allowed to go back to the wizarding world?"

Granger paled more than he had seen her do yet, and he was honestly a bit impressed that she was still on her feet instead of swooning on the floor. "Harry wouldn't kill him," she whispered. "Not the helpless Muggle that he's made of him."

Draco shrugged. "Perhaps not." He had the feeling that Harry's taste for killing had been more than satisfied—but then, he also doubted that Harry had a _taste _for killing at all, in the way that Granger and Weasley thought he did. The soft, subdued thoughts in the back of Draco's head argued for that, at least. "But it's true that he really has nothing else that he can do with him, except _Obliviate _him and exile him to the Muggle world. A fitting fate for one who hated Muggles so much. If he never comes into contact with someone who knows who he is again—and a deep glamour will take care of that, one anchored at the level of the skin—then there is no one who will know how to lift it."

"A glamour can't do that," Granger interrupted, her interest in spell theory lifting her past her moral objections.

Draco gave her an amused glance. "Ordinarily, no. But do you think Harry's magic incapable of it?"

Granger closed her eyes and touched her forehead between her eyes with two fingers, as if trying to close a third eye that had opened there. "I don't want to," she whispered. "But it seems that I may have to acknowledge that it is."

Draco cocked his head. "What's wrong with his magic being powerful enough to do that?"

"It would mean that he's using his strength like he did when he killed," Granger said simply, opening her eyes and looking at him again. For all that, Draco didn't think she was _seeing _him. "Not restraining it, just pouring it out on the world, and that—that's something I don't want to see him do."

Draco snorted and rolled his eyes. "You make no sense, Granger. What would you have preferred that he do? Just let the children suffer? Tried to negotiate with people who weren't interested in that, at all? You weren't there when he interrogated Moonstone. I was. There was no way that he could have forged a peace treaty with people like that."

"I wasn't thinking about a _peace _treaty," Granger whispered, and her fingers went back to that third eye that seemed to be giving her trouble. "But there must have been something else he could have done."

"Why?" Draco demanded, and felt a roil from the back of his mind that indicated Harry had noticed his agitated thoughts. Well, he might come downstairs if he wanted. Draco was coming increasingly to think that he and Granger had nothing to say to each other, any more than Harry and Moonstone had had. "Why do you fear Harry having this power so much? If there's anyone you can trust with supreme power, I think it's your perfectly good and loyal and trusting Gryffindor friend, isn't it? Unless you have reason to suspect that he would do something wrong with it, of course."

"And he did." Granger bowed her head again. "He killed people. He tortured them. He took magic. He did good things with it, too," she added hastily, as Draco opened his mouth. "But he did so much evil along the way…I can't be easy with that."

Draco turned his head away. He thought he could see the problem. Granger was coping with a number of shocks to the system, among them that her precious friend was capable of acting in a way that she disapproved of. If she had some distance from him, some time to think about it and see how ridiculous she was being, then she would probably get over it. She already spoke of taking Moonstone's magic as a lesser crime than the rest, although earlier she had seemed willing to forsake Harry over that alone.

Luckily, she would get plenty of time and distance, if Draco had any say—and if the intentions he could feel rippling in the back of Harry's mind came to fruition.

He turned around as Weasley and Harry walked into the room. Granger looked up and gave them both a smile. Harry lingered in the doorway instead of going immediately to Draco the way Weasley went to her, whispering into her hair and hugging her around the waist with one arm. Harry looked as if he wanted another smile from Granger, or at least to judge how meaningful her smiles to him were.

Draco settled the issue by stepping in front of him and asking quietly, "What do you mean to do with Moonstone?"

Harry's eyes immediately fixed on him. It was _most _gratifying, Draco thought, and raised a hand to rest on Harry's cheek before he thought about it. Harry let his eyes flutter shut and sighed. _Take _that, Draco heard, directed at Harry's friends, and he honestly wasn't sure which one of them had thought it.

"I'm going to _Obliviate _him," Harry said as quietly in return. "Yeah, it wouldn't have worked if he was going to be a wizard, but he won't. I'll destroy his magic and keep it from going back to him that way. It's too dangerous for him to run into some of his friends—there might be other people who weren't obvious to us involved in this—and to gain his memory and his power back."

"There's no way to destroy someone's magic forever," Weasley said. Draco thought that was interesting; perhaps Granger had exhausted herself in the argument with Draco. "We all know that. There's nothing you can do that will keep it from manifesting."

"Yes, that's what you would think," Harry said, without any rancor in his tone. "But there isn't a way to make something as invulnerable as the Blood Bubble, either, according to conventional magical theory. I'll come up with something."

Draco shifted. "I may be able to," he said.

Harry glanced at him, quick-smiling and with the rivers in the back of his mind singing, _Always knew it. _"What is it?" he asked.

"I was thinking during the battle," Draco said, staring back at him and demanding all the attention in the room. He might get less than his share from Granger and Weasley, but Harry's shining eyes more than made up for that lack. "After all, now I'm subject to a prophecy just like you were. And you told me of some _interesting _ways that you made being the subject of one work for you, with respect to the Blood Bubble. Why can't I make the magic work for me the same way, but in another direction?"

Harry leaned forwards and kissed him. Draco wound his hands into Harry's hair in response and held him there, kissing back and making sure that their tongues intertwined. Harry pulled away, shaking his head and grinning.

"You're _brilliant_," he said.

Which was more than enough explanation for the kiss, if it had needed one in the first place. Draco hummed under his breath and turned to face Harry's friends, leaning against Harry not because he needed the support, but because he wanted it, welcomed it.

Granger was staring at them. Weasley had a faint smile of understanding on his face.

"You're going, then," he said. "You're both going."

Draco nodded. It was true that Harry hadn't formally asked him yet, any more than he had formally asked if Draco really wanted to adopt these four children, but he couldn't conceive of refusing now. And he had already accepted that he was the subject of a prophecy. It was really his acceptance of the facts that was the most important thing, not what anyone else thought about it.

"I wish you luck," Weasley said, and cleared his throat, glancing at his wife.

Granger mustered a deep breath that seemed to come from the bottom of her stomach, and then she nodded. "Yes," she murmured. "I know that—I know that you have to do what's best for you. I just wish—oh, _Harry._" And she stood up and flew across the room to catch Harry up in her arms, rudely displacing Draco.

Draco stepped aside and tried not to bristle. The way he saw it, Granger had to know that Harry wasn't really all that interested in _her _good opinion. He and Harry were the ones who had the mental connection to each other, the promise, the experience fighting beside each other in battle.

They were the ones who had the future.

Harry met his eyes over Granger's head as she sobbed on his shoulder, and nodded slightly, smiling. Then he bent down and began to murmur into Granger's ear, telling her the truth, that he never would have done something so awful if the cause hadn't been so good.

Draco leaned against the wall and half-closed his eyes.

Eventually, he thought, Granger would accept that, and Harry would have his friends again. And these children he wanted to protect, and a life that might give him more chance of using any magic he wanted to instead of tripping him up with Ministry politics.

And Draco.

Draco didn't have to fool himself about what the greatest prize in all of that was.


	36. In Peace

Thank you again for all the reviews! This is the end of _Sanctum Sanctorum. _I hope you enjoyed the story!

_Chapter Thirty-Six-In Peace_

"Wh-who are you? How did you get in here?"

Draco curled his lip under the hood that he had drawn up over his face, although he honestly couldn't be sure if it was more in amusement or in contempt. The blinking, wild-haired woman crouched on the bed in front of him didn't much resemble the importunate Seer Harry had talked about.

Of course, having a stranger in robes modeled after a Death Eater's appear out of nowhere in what she thought were her extremely well-protected private chambers might do that to someone. Draco had never sold the secret of the potion he'd invented that could contravene Hogwarts's wards. There had been a time when he'd thought he might have to flee back to the school for sanctuary after the war. Even then, however, he'd always intended to have _private _means of entrance at his disposal.

"I came to ask you about something," he said softly, drawing his robe back far enough that Plumm could see a potions vial in his hand. She read it for the threat it was and huddled back against the pillows, shutting her mouth.

"G-go on," she squeaked, when she finally realized that Draco was waiting for an answer.

"The vision that you showed Harry Potter," Draco murmured. "A month ago, perhaps." Strange to think that his life could have changed that much in so short a time, but then, he had never thought to be struck by Hurricane Harry, either. "How far in the future was it?"

Plumm took a few noisy breaths. Then she said, "How did you find out about it? What do you want to know?" As Draco had hoped, she took him for someone who desired to nose out more details about the Chosen One's life, not someone who might be concerned in the vision himself.

"We have our ways," Draco drawled, and paused to let her imagine all sorts of visions of secret orders and the like before he closed ruthlessly in and crushed the hesitation. "And there are rewards for you if you tell us."

"Galleons?" Plumm let her eyes flicker back to the potions vial in his hands as if wondering whether it was valuable.

"Your life."

A ridiculous threat, but one that worked on someone as unsophisticated as Plumm, who had not _lived _through the war or through danger since as Draco and Harry had. Whimpering, she nodded. "The vision was real," she whispered. "But I could not tell exactly how far in the future. Not misty enough to be a decade away, not clear enough to be very close."

"And did you use a spell to make it appear?" Draco flipped his wand into his hand under cover of his sleeve. He wanted to try and destroy Moonstone's trapped magic, yes, but he could not if it turned out the prophecy he believed himself to be under was false.

"No!" Plumm seemed to have caught the wand-movement from the corner of her eye, and thus to be a little more sophisticated than Draco had expected. She put her arms over her face and shook her head furiously. "I wouldn't dare! There are few things I'm afraid of-"

_A lie, _Draco noted, but at least it was easy to tell when she lied, her voice became so shrill.

"But abusing my Seeing gift is one of them." Plumm sat up and took a deep breath as if trying to recover more dignity, although that was hard when she wouldn't take her hands away from her face. "I wouldn't do that."

After a few long moments of studying her, Draco decided it was true. Then he said, "Why did you so want to tell Potter's fortune that day?" It was hard to prevent himself from saying Harry's first name, but doing so might give the game away and reveal who he was. Besides, Plumm didn't deserve to hear the caressing tone Draco knew he would add to it.

"Because I thought he might-reward me," Plumm said, and her voice sank, which revealed that to be truth.

Draco tapped his wand against his teeth for a moment. Then he said, "You will never reveal the details of this vision to another living soul." He had thought about _Obliviating _her, but someone who gave genuine visions of his and Harry's future might be useful. Perhaps in a few years they could come back and pressure her into revealing another one.

"I promise," Plumm whispered. "You'll be the last one I'll tell."

"Indeed," Draco said, not believing for one moment that she wouldn't tell someone else who might appear with a bag full of Galleons to offer her, or, for that matter, someone like him who made suitably threatening gestures. He had his own methods of ensuring that she wouldn't say anything he didn't like. "_Linguam adstringo._"

Plumm gasped and raised her hand to her mouth, feeling around her lips. "What did you do to me?" she whispered at last, and seemed immensely relieved that her tongue had actually moved and she could still speak.

Draco smiled at her, letting his teeth shine out in the darkness. From the way Plumm put her hands back over her face, that was more intimidating than showing the whole of his expression would have been. "Ensured that you cannot speak about the vision to anyone else," he said. "Aided you in keeping your promise. _So _many people need help these days, I find."

He turned his back, whirling so that his robes surrounded him, and appeared to dissolve into mist in her sight. In reality, he cast a Disillusionment Charm that combined with the ward-passing potion in his bloodstream to make him look that way.

Then he simply waited until her nervous sobbing had quieted, and left the room by slipping silently through the door and shutting it as silently behind him.

Well. Interesting. He was the subject of a prophecy as Harry had been; he was the one whose future, this time, was determined and stretched-out, the way Harry's had been. And such a future! The lover of a man he had hated, the father of children who had until recently been Muggles.

But Draco felt no distress as he stood there. He felt curiosity, anticipation, eagerness to begin with the future-the emotions he had felt when he first saw Harry walk through the door of his flat all those weeks ago, in fact.

He smiled, and went down the stairs.

* * *

"I think-I think it says-"

Adam hesitated. There was a breathless pause, or at least one that felt that way to Harry. Paulette and Walter were playing with toys that they tried to make spin through the air with their magic on the far side of the room, but even they looked up. Emery leaned forwards from the letter blocks Harry was having him play with.

"I think it says _cat_," Adam said.

The last word was in English.

Harry closed his eyes for a moment, so triumphant that he was afraid he might cry if he kept them open, and the children would _certainly _take that the wrong way. Especially Paulette, who was the most distrustful of all of them. Then he opened them again and smiled at both Adam and the book he was holding up in front of him, which showed a bright picture of a kitten and the simple word beneath, in English letters.

"That's exactly right," he whispered in Parseltongue. "That's what it says."

Adam whooped and hugged him around the neck. Emery promptly hurried forwards and pleaded to be allowed to learn, too, although Harry thought he was probably too young to read yet, period. Walter bounced up and down in place, chortling. Paulette watched warily, but there was a faint, far smile on her face.

Then the door opened, and Draco stepped in.

Adam and Emery paused and looked up at him. Walter shrank towards Paulette, who put an arm around him and stared at Draco. Draco just stared back, raising his eyebrows a little, and a moment later, Paulette's faint smile reappeared and she relaxed, turning back to her toys.

The others seemed to use that as a signal; Harry had realized they paid a lot of attention to Paulette, maybe because she was older than they were or more powerful than they were with wandless magic, or maybe because she'd tried to protect the rest of them when they were captives. At any rate, Emery and Adam relaxed enough to go back to talking, and Walter, who was the shiest of all of them, hid behind the shadowy cat his magic had conjured for a few minutes more.

Draco took a seat on the couch nearby and jerked his head a little at Harry. Harry put Adam on the floor, told him to try reading another word in the book by himself, and walked over to Draco, sitting down on the couch. Draco put one arm around his shoulders and leaned in to murmur into his ear.

"I've been to see Plumm. I'm confident that she'll be telling no one about the vision she had of us."

Harry rolled his eyes. "And I'm sure you reinforced the binding promise with a little Dark magic," he muttered out of the corner of his mouth.

"Harry, you wound me," Draco said, clapping a hand to his heart and bowing his head. "I only explained the advantages of the situation to her, and she agreed."

Harry snorted, but his desire to tease Draco was half-hearted. For one thing, he doubted Draco would have playacted like that a few weeks ago, when they were new to each other. He'd changed a lot for Harry's and the children's sake, and it would be wrong to ask him to change more. "Fine. What happens now?"

Draco stuck his tongue out and lapped gently at the curve of Harry's ear, which made Harry gasp and shiver. He glanced at the children, but they were busy with their books or their toys, Emery looking over Adam's shoulder as if to prove that he could learn the English words by reading them, too. Draco tightened his hand on Harry and squeezed.

"I have a small house in France," he whispered. "Part of the Malfoy property that we stopped claiming some time ago so as to avoid...inconvenient taxes. But the wards still won't let anyone not of the Malfoy line by blood or adoption in without permission. We could go there. It's a safe, isolated place, but one not so far from the normal stream of French wizarding society that the children would have to grow up unsocialized."

Harry cocked his head at him. "And you're perfectly satisfied to raise these children, and raise them as wizards."

"That's what they are," Draco said, staring at him as if he hadn't anticipated Harry having an objection. "They used to be Muggles, but now they're not."

Harry just shook his head again. Really, the bigger issue was the one Draco's words neatly dodged. "Are you willing to have them to have me? Because you know that I won't walk away from them, no matter what the temptation." Draco was free to say that that was more because of Harry's issues than because he loved children, if that was what he liked. It was probably true. Harry remembered the fervent wishing, wondering, and hoping when he was at the Dursleys': hoping that _today _would be the day someone noticed him and liked him just because of who he was, hoping that it would all turn out to be a horrible lie that his parents had died and they would rescue him. He knew the sensation too well ever to turn away from Adam and the others.

Draco sighed and looked at the children. Paulette met their eyes for a moment, and then turned away to whisper to Walter. The shadowy cat on his shoulder leaped down, stalked over, and glared at the blocks Paulette had been making rotate. They rose into the air and spun around.

Harry started to applaud. It was the first time Walter's magic had done something besides make the cat appear. Walter flinched at the sudden sound, then realized what it was and glanced over at him with a smile.

"Good job, Walter!" Harry called, and Walter came running over to him for a hug. Draco reached out one hand as though to touch the boy's back, and then pulled it down so it rested on his lap again. There was such a complicated expression on his face that Harry realized he had no idea what Draco would say next.

Walter bounded back to Paulette's side of the room, and Draco turned, looked at Harry, and nodded. "I want you," he said. "And it will be...a challenge, raising them. An adventure. Different from what I expected."

"I thought that wasn't what you wanted, though," Harry murmured. "The shop, your job, your life-you could have had children if you wanted them. Are you _sure _that you can be happy this way? Not content, not sacrificing what you want and putting up with a lot you don't just to have me."

Draco gazed into his face, eyes so clear that the sight of them almost hurt. Harry looked back, and felt the coil of deep emotion down in his gut. Even if he and Draco ended up not staying together, he thought, Ron was wrong to worry. It was worth it to have been with him, to have had this.

Draco said at last, "I didn't imagine myself living this life, no. But I didn't imagine myself having sex with you, or _wanting _sex from you, or wanting the mental bond we have, either." The mental bonds had begun to fade, as Draco had warned Harry they would unless they both took another dose of the potion, but Harry could still hear the murmur of Draco's thoughts now, soft and drowsy and confirming the truth of his words with whispers of _This is right. _"Sometimes, what we don't imagine is what takes us by storm and makes us incapable of living without it."

Harry leaned forwards and rested his lips on Draco's, for a moment. He thought he felt the children staring, but he doubted they minded. As long as they had parents, as long as they had parents with a strong bond to take care of them, they would be all right.

_And we're going to be all right, too._

* * *

Draco tilted his head downwards and reached out with both hands. He had never been here in his life, a small dell among dusty hills that seemed as absolutely blank and undesirable a spot in France as anyone could imagine, but he had memorized his father's instructions on how to gain entrance long ago.

The invisible sweep of a blade came down across both palms. Draco felt the sword taste his blood, and the movements of a guardian nearby, and didn't look up, as Lucius had warned him he must not, although he burned to.

There was more silence, and a brief glimpse of a blue-robed figure bowing to him. Then the sense of oppressive threat faded.

And when Draco raised his head, the landscape had transformed.

There was a fence in front of him, made of wrought silver with heavy scrolls on the gates, but now it stood open, and a faint, fresh breeze blew through it, aiming for Draco's nostrils. Draco smiled and strode forwards, feeling grass softly crush beneath his feet. Not overly-long grass, either, which indicated that the preservation spells left here were doing their work. The family hadn't had the house-elves to spare to tend to a home that no one would live in for long years, but the right kind of magic would keep the gardens in order and the furniture free of dust.

The garden around him still looked thick and green and wild, though, with clipped hedges towering along the path and winding walls of white stone that marked flowerbeds. Draco drew the complex scents of blooming roses into his nostrils and turned to the side, towards one of the huge bushes.

It was covered with dark blue blossoms whose centers looked black. Draco reached up and plucked one, and then turned around and held out the flower to the ones who waited behind him.

Harry walked forwards holding Adam and Emery by the hand, Walter and Paulette crowding behind him. He let go of Adam briefly-and Adam leaned against his leg in response-to accept the flower. Then he took a deep breath of it, and looked at Draco, and smiled.

Draco smiled back, letting the moment linger because he wanted to, and then led them on towards the house.

It had only one floor, but it didn't need to rise high, not when it sprawled in lazy wings of stone across the grounds. Draco could feel the way it had dozed, and the way it was waking up now, stretching and shaking out its magic, yawning as the spells beat their way through corridors and rooms, its doors falling open to continue the yawn.

The stone that made up the building was a mild, mellow grey, varied here and there with red and yellow. Draco's ancestors had cared less about a uniform look than picking what they liked.

Draco waved his hand, and the wards, sensing his desire, made the flight of stairs that led up to the front doors less steep and wider, more like a ramp. It would have to be that way from now on, for children whose grasp of their own steps was sometimes still uncertain.

When he walked into the entrance hall, it was dim for only a moment before shutters swung back and slight burning spells devoured any dust that had escaped in mid-air. Draco watched early morning sunlight pour through onto gleaming butter-yellow stone and portraits of Malfoy ancestors start to life and peer out at him.

None of them spoke yet. Draco found himself grateful for that. The children were likely to take less explaining than Harry was.

He walked further in, and doors opened to sitting rooms, to bedrooms, to studies full of books that the Malfoys had considered less than essential when they went to live in England. And off to one side was a potions lab, clean and wide and polished. Draco would only need to clean out some of the older equipment that most Potions masters barely used anymore.

The children followed behind, so silent that Draco knew the solemnity of the place was affecting them. Only one way to change that. He turned around with a broad smile and his arms spread, and watched them come to a halt, piling up behind each other, their eyes wide and fastened on him.

Inwardly, he grimaced. They were growing more comfortable around him all the time, but still they sometimes thought of him in the same category as the wizards who had hurt them.

But that was in the past, as were Draco's arrangements for placing his assistants with other Potions masters, and gathering up his stock, and placing the shop for sale. He chose to drop his arms and meet all their eyes instead, waiting until last to look into Harry's. "Welcome to Jour Hall," he said. "I hope that you will make this your home."

Paulette was the one who considered him the longest, and then she nodded and said in a dry little voice, "Thank you." Draco was no longer surprised that Plumm's vision had shown her as leading the others in their practice of wandless magic.

Harry translated for Adam and Emery, and then picked up Walter, whose shadow-cat-the size of a panther this time-was stalking beside him again. "Let's go find the bedrooms you want," he said, both in English and in a ripple of Parseltongue that made Draco's body ache.

_That _was enough to wake them up. They ran away down the corridors with shouts in the direction of more doors that Draco hadn't opened, and Draco watched Harry walking with them, opening those doors with perfect confidence, looking into the rooms and discussing the arrangements of beds and toys and windows and cupboards.

As if he had been here before, or planned to live here for a long time. As if this was his home.

Draco leaned back against the wall and watched them, his lover and his children, making their way further into what would become his home, too-a place that had been the home of his ancestors, that could have been the home of his parents if they had not chosen to reside in England, that would be the home of those he had chosen and those who, if they wanted to and when they reached the right age, he could make Malfoys by adoption.

It was strange, perhaps the strangest thing that had ever happened to him, to acquire a different future at a stroke. Not that he hadn't had one when he had been a Potions master; not that he could not have been content without Harry. That was important to him to clarify in his own mind. He was not dependent on Harry for everything he had received from him. If he had found that material, that kind of contentment or sex or belonging, lacking in his own mind, then he would have gone to find it himself.

But this he had not imagined. This, he had not planned for.

This, he had simply gained.

Draco touched the packet of Galen's notes that rested in his pocket. He watched the children, self-confidence slowly growing back after their traumas, become lost in the thrill of opening more and more rooms, watching everything spread out in front of them, rather than choosing one yet.

He watched Harry glance back at him over his shoulder and wink, solemnly.

Draco nodded back. It was good to be coming home.

**The End.**


End file.
